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“We will be ready,” Watkins said.

The renovations and protocol rewrite were ordered by DOC Director Robert Patton after the April 29 execution of Clayton Lockett, who writhed on the gurney, mumbled and tried to lift his head before his execution was eventually called off. Lockett died 43 minutes after the procedure began.

Lockett had been convicted of shooting Stephanie Nieman, 19, with a sawed-off shotgun and watching as two accomplices buried her alive in 1999.

An investigation into Lockett’s lethal injection blamed his lengthy execution on the poor placement of a single intravenous line that wasn’t monitored throughout the procedure. As a result, some of the lethal drugs were injected into Lockett’s tissue instead of directly into his blood stream, the report found.

Based on the recommendations in the report, prison officials renovated the space to give the execution team in an adjacent “chemical room” more space to operate. They also installed new lighting and new audio and video equipment so the condemned inmate can be more closely monitored.

The renovations mean that only five media witnesses will now be able to witness an execution — down from 12 — prompting criticism from open government advocates.

“They took a process already corrupted by secrecy that had already led to at least one botched execution, and managed somehow to make it even more difficult for the people of Oklahoma and their representatives in the media to know anything about that process,” said Ryan Kiesel, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma.