Oklahoma officials tasked with carrying out the death penalty will not be deterred by a shortage of lethal injection drugs: Authorities said they plan to use nitrogen gas to carry out death row executions.
Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter and Corrections Director Joe M. Allbaugh made the “unprecedented” announcement even through there is no execution protocol for using nitrogen gas, the Washington Post reported Thursday.
“Executions are the most profound application of state power,” Hunter said, the Post reported. “I believe in justice for victims and their families, and in capital punishment as appropriate for dealing with those whose commit these crimes. Using an inert gas will be effective, simple to administer, easy to obtain and requires no complex medical procedures.”
Dale A. Baich, an attorney who’s challenging the state’s execution protocol on behalf of 20 Oklahoma death-row prisoners, called upon state leaders to be “completely transparent” as it develops the new method, the report stated.
“This method has never been used before and is experimental,” Baich told the Post. “Oklahoma is once again asking us to trust it as officials ‘learn-on-the-job,’ through a new execution procedure and method. How can we trust Oklahoma to get this right when the state’s recent history reveals a culture of carelessness and mistakes in executions?” – READ MORE
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