Execution of Clayton Lockett

Human rights organizations also condemned the killing and called on the government to end using it. Ryan Kiesel, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma, said that by using a “science experiment” to cause Lockett to "die in pain" over the course of more than 40 minutes, the state had “disgraced itself before the nation and world”. US advocacy director of Human Rights Watch Antonio Ginatta said "people convicted of crimes should not be test subjects for a state’s grisly experiments" and that the "botched execution was nothing less than state-sanctioned torture".

A month after the execution Oklahoma state had not released the official log of the incident. Oklahoma State University professor and freedom of information campaigner Joey Senat said, “They’re not complying with the law by this kind of delay.”

The death of Clayton Darrell Lockett occurred on April 29, 2014, when he suffered a heart attack during an execution by lethal injection in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. Lockett, aged 38, was convicted in 2000 of murder, rape and kidnapping.

Lockett's failed execution occurred at Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Oklahoma, on April 29, 2014, after he had been tasered by staff and attempted to cut himself earlier that day. A paramedic tried twice to put an IV needle into Lockett's left arm but failed. She then tried to insert the needle into his brachial vein in his biceps but also failed. She asked for help from a doctor in attendance, Johnny Zellmer, who tried three times to get the IV into the jugular vein in Lockett's neck but failed. He then tried the subclavian vein adjacent to Lockett's collar bone but failed again. The paramedic tried two veins in the left foot but failed. Zellmer then inserted the needle into the femoral vein in the groin.

Due to the supply issues, Oklahoma used an untested mixture of midazolam (to make the victim fall unconscious), vecuronium bromide (to paralyse), and potassium chloride (used to stop the heart) for Lockett's execution. While Florida had previously used the same three drugs in a 2013 execution, they used 500 mg of midazolam rather than the 100 mg used by Oklahoma. Secrecy laws in Oklahoma prevent the public knowing more than which three drugs were used. The state refused to state why that drug combination was chosen, what the drugs were like and how they were obtained. Reportedly, the drugs were bought with petty cash making the transaction harder to track and to challenge legally.

In 2011, Hospira announced that it would stop manufacturing sodium thiopental, due to use by American prisons for executions. "Virtually all" death rows in the US were left without a steady supply of the drug, which is used to numb the pain of potassium chloride stopping the heart. Some states bartered supplies of execution drugs, while other states were accused of illegally buying drugs from India and other sources. The Drug Enforcement Administration seized supplies of sodium thiopental from several states in spring and summer 2011, questioning how they were imported. Other manufacturers have also refused to provide pharmaceutical drugs for the purpose of execution, and a European export ban added to problems obtaining the necessary drugs.

In 1999, Lockett kidnapped and shot Stephanie Neiman, a 19-year-old high school graduate, a friend of Lockett's other victims, and a witness to his crimes. He used duct tape to bind her hands and cover her mouth. Even after being kidnapped and driven to a dusty country road, Neiman refused to back down when Lockett asked if she planned to contact police. After she stated she would go to the police as soon as he released her, Lockett walked her into a ravine and had his accomplices help her over a barbed wire fence, where Lockett shot her from a distance of approximately six feet with a 1/4-ounce slug from a sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun. The impact from the slug tore into her chest and shoulder, knocking her to the ground. At that time Lockett's gun jammed. As Nieman lay on the ground moaning in agony, he walked back to their vehicle and using a screw driver unjammed the shotgun. As Nieman moaned and convulsed on the ground, Lockett walked back to where she lay across the fence, and while holding the shotgun over the fence approximately two feet from Nieman's chest, he pulled the trigger. Even though the second shot was directly in her chest it still wasn't fatal. As Nieman lay on the ground gasping for air, he stated, "I ain't going to shoot her again," and decided to bury her alive. Lockett ordered an accomplice to bury her while she was still breathing. She died from two wounds from a shotgun fired by Lockett. In 2000, he was convicted of murder, rape, forcible sodomy, kidnapping, assault, and battery and was sentenced to death.

At his 1999 murder trial, DNA from the dead victim, fingerprints from the duct tape used to bind the victim, and eyewitness testimony led to his murder conviction.

In 1996, Lockett was sentenced to four years in prison for a conviction in Grady County, for conspiracy to commit a felony.

In 1992, at the age of sixteen, Lockett pleaded guilty in Kay County to burglary and knowingly concealing stolen property. He received a seven-year prison sentence. Earlier that year, he pleaded no contest to two counts of intimidating state witnesses.

Clayton Lockett was born in 1975 to a drug-using mother. She abandoned him when he was three years old, and he was then raised by his father who severely physically abused Lockett throughout his childhood, gave him drugs starting at age three, and encouraged him to steal and not get caught.

From 1890 to 2010, the rate of botched lethal injections in the United States was 7.1%, higher than any other form of execution, with firing squads at 0%, the electric chair at 1.9%, hanging at 3.1%, and the gas chamber at 5.4%.