“At the same time we do have an advantage due to the fact that we have actual facts and law on our side while the other side has nothing but a bunch of hearsay observations and hysterical speculation,” states Hadden’s email.

Defense attorneys for inmates Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner had claimed in court filings that the lethal drug combination Oklahoma planned to use for the first time to execute the two men on April 29 could result in lingering, painful deaths for their clients.

“The defendants’ proposed way of putting the Plaintiffs to death is nothing more than an experiment,” attorneys for Lockett and Warner said in one legal filing.

The legal action, ultimately unsuccessful, challenged the state’s 2011 execution secrecy law as unconstitutional because it barred release of information about the lethal drugs and who would administer them.

Lockett’s execution at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary took 43 minutes, including at least three minutes where he writhed in pain, mumbled and rose up from the gurney after a doctor declared him unconscious. Prison officials closed a blind in the death chamber and discovered a problem with Lockett’s IV.