Oklahoma Lawmaker Defends Executions Amidst Controversy

Saturday, May 3rd 2014, 11:31 am

By: News 9

An Oklahoma inmate scheduled to die Tuesday night didn't die from lethal injection but from a massive heart attack nearly 45 minutes after the drugs were first administered.

Prison officials blame a collapsed vein for the controversial outcome of the execution which has gained worldwide attention. Clayton Lockett's execution was stopped midway through when officials said the drugs did not properly make it into the inmate's blood stream.

But the inmate's experience alone is unlikely to change minds about capital punishment in the nation's most active death-penalty states, where lawmakers say there is little political will to move against lethal injections.

5/2/2014 Related Story: Investigation Into Controversial Oklahoma Execution Continues

Oklahoma Representative Mike Christian is a lawmaker who pushed to have state Supreme Court justices impeached for briefly halting Tuesday's execution.

He says he doesn't care whether inmates are executed by injection, electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or "being fed to the lions."

Defense attorneys for death-row inmates hope Tuesday's execution provides new evidence to argue that the injections are inhumane and illegal.