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Update at 8:19 p.m. ET. Execution Fails: 

According to reporters tweeting from inside the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Oklahoma, the execution of Clayton D. Lockett has failed. Lockett died of a heart attack after the execution was aborted.

The execution of Charles Warner, which was supposed to take place at 9 p.m. ET., was stayed by Corrections Director Robert Patton.

According to the AP reporter on the scene, about 34 minutes after the execution was scheduled to begin, Lockett was still conscious.


"He was lifting [his] head at [7:39 p.m. ET] and he was still alive and DOC closed [the] curtain and stopped it," 

Patton told reporters that Lockett's vein failed during the execution, preventing the chemicals from entering his body. All three drugs, however, were administered.

At 8:06 p.m. ET., more than an hour after the execution was scheduled to begin, Lockett died of a massive heart attack.


In the weeks leading up to the execution, there had been much controversy over 

 the state was going to use for the execution.


Warner's attorney, Madeline Cohen, called the proposed execution method "experimental."

 undertaken in Ohio in January. As we reported, when that state executed Dennis McGuire with a new cocktail of drugs, it took 24 minutes for him to die and he gasped for air and made snorting and choking sounds for at least 10 minutes.
Ohio 

Update at 11:02 p.m. ET. Attorney Says Warner 'Tortured To Death':

Warner's attorney issued a statement calling for an investigation into the botched execution, as well as an autopsy by an independent pathologist and full disclosure on the drugs used on Warner.

"After weeks of Oklahoma refusing to disclose basic information about the drugs for tonight's lethal injection procedures, tonight, Clayton Lockett was tortured to death," Madeline Cohen said.

"Until much more is known about tonight's failed experiment of an execution, no execution can be permitted in Oklahoma," she said.

A long legal and political battle in Oklahoma is scheduled to culminate this evening with a double execution.

The state is poised to execute Clayton D. Lockett, 38, and Charles F. Warner, 46, using a relatively new combination of drugs.

Over the past few months, the United States has seen a flurry of legal challenges to death sentences, because drug companies, citing political and physical threats, have stopped supplying states with traditional execution drugs.

States, in turn, have been using novel combinations for executions and have refused to reveal the names of their suppliers because they say doing so would jeopardize the relationship.

, a lower-court judge in Oklahoma ordered the state to delay the executions because of the uncertainty surrounding the drugs. That case worked its way up the court system where there was some tension. 

Fallin supported the execution saying the men did not contest their guilt.

"Tonight, in a climate of secrecy and political posturing, Oklahoma intends to kill two death row prisoners using an experimental new drug protocol, including a paralytic, making it impossible to know whether the executions will comport with the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual suffering," Madeline Cohen, who represents Warner said in a statement. She continued:

Crime, Law and Justice

The Associated Press

Author

Director Robert Patton says inmate Jerry Massie died Tuesday after all three drugs were administered.

After one failed execution, Okla. stays a second

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