Oklahoma Death Row Inmates Protest Change In Execution Drug

I've seen it all, now. Two ruthless, cold blooded murders who sit on death row in Oklahoma have made official protests that the State of Oklahoma is substituting an execution drug with another and they feel that it presents "cruel and unusual punishment" for their upcoming executions.

From the article at Breitbart:

Two death row inmates in Oklahoma are asking a federal judge on Friday to stop their pending executions after the state said it planned to substitute the anesthetic used during lethal injections because of a drug shortage.
Oklahoma is one of several states that have been scrambling after the sole U.S. manufacturer of sodium thiopental—an anesthetic that renders the condemned inmate unconscious—said new batches of the barbiturate would not be available until January at the earliest. Hospira Inc. has blamed the shortage on problems with its raw-material suppliers.

The Oklahoma Department of Corrections ran out of that drug earlier this year, and instead, the state plans to substitute a similar drug called pentobarbital, which is used in animal euthanasia.

Death row inmates Jeffrey David Matthews and John David Duty have challenged the use of the new drug, alleging it would violate their constitutional rights to be free from "cruel and unusual punishment."

Now, before I go into my tirade here, let's look at what landed Matthews and Duty on death row:

Matthews' execution has been delayed several times because of his objection to substituting sodium thiopental. Matthews was convicted in the 1994 murder of his 77-year-old great-uncle, Otis Earl Short, during a robbery of Short's home.

Duty was convicted of the December 2001 murder of 22-year-old Curtis Wise, who was Duty's cellmate at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. Wise was strangled to death with shoelaces. At the time, Duty was serving three life sentences for rape, robbery and shooting with intent to kill, all dating from 1978.

So, my question is this...what choice of death did Otis Earl Short have, Mr. Matthews? Did you ask your great uncle if he wanted to die and how? And as for the piece of shit Duty, do you suppose that Curtis Wise felt his strangulation death was free of "cruel and unusual punishment?" How about the women you raped, Mr. Duty? Did those women have any say before you violated their bodies and their souls?

These two men gave up any rights they had as human beings the day they performed these atrocities - they, at that moment, when they took the life from another human, joined the ranks of viscious animals and at this point simply need to be put down. These two vermin need no sedative, no anasthetic - they need justice. They need to feel the retribution of the families of those they killed and maimed. They need to experience the wrath of a society that will not bow to their likes. Put 'em to death now and make it sting like hell.

Okla. death row inmates protest new execution drug


OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - Two death row inmates in Oklahoma are asking a federal judge on Friday to stop their pending executions after the state said it planned to substitute the anesthetic used during lethal injections because of a drug shortage.
Oklahoma is one of several states that have been scrambling after the sole U.S. manufacturer of sodium thiopental—an anesthetic that renders the condemned inmate unconscious—said new batches of the barbiturate would not be available until January at the earliest. Hospira Inc. has blamed the shortage on problems with its raw-material suppliers.

The Oklahoma Department of Corrections ran out of that drug earlier this year, and instead, the state plans to substitute a similar drug called pentobarbital, which is used in animal euthanasia.

Death row inmates Jeffrey David Matthews and John David Duty have challenged the use of the new drug, alleging it would violate their constitutional rights to be free from "cruel and unusual punishment."

Several states that have lethal injection employ the three-drug combination that was created in the 1970s: First, sodium thiopental is given by syringe to put the inmate to sleep. Then two other drugs are administered: pancuronium bromide, which paralyzes muscles, and potassium chloride, which stops the heart.

Sodium thiopental is a barbiturate, used primarily to anesthetize surgical patients and induce medical comas. It is also used to help terminally ill people commit suicide and sometimes to euthanize animals.

Matthews' execution has been delayed several times because of his objection to substituting sodium thiopental. Matthews was convicted in the 1994 murder of his 77-year-old great-uncle, Otis Earl Short, during a robbery of Short's home.

Duty was convicted of the December 2001 murder of 22-year-old Curtis Wise, who was Duty's cellmate at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. Wise was strangled to death with shoelaces. At the time, Duty was serving three life sentences for rape, robbery and shooting with intent to kill, all dating from 1978.

John Kenneth Muhammad...The Gates Of Hell Await You

Beltway sniper to die today by lethal injection in jail execution chamber


HE BECAME known as the "Beltway sniper" after the road ringing the US capital, Washington DC.
For three weeks in October 2002, two US states were gripped by fear as John Allen Muhammad and his teenage accomplice, John Lee Malvo, killed ten people in a series of random attacks.Today, Muhammad will die by lethal injection in an execution chamber in Virginia.The US Supreme Court has refused to block the execution, which is officially for the slaying of Dean Harold Meyers at a petrol station during the shooting spree.Beginning on 2 October, Muhammad and Malvo, who was then 17, shot a total of 13 people with a high-powered rifle, firing from the boot of a modified Chevrolet sedan. Ten people died. Authorities finally tracked down the pair at a rest stop off a main highway in Maryland.Investigators and the prosecution at trial suggested that Muhammad intended to kill his ex-wife Mildred, who had estranged him from his children. According to this theory, she would appear to be just another random victim of the snipers. Muhammad frequented the suburb where she lived during the attacks, and some of the incidents occurred nearby.The first victim was James Martin, shot dead in the early hours of the morning in the car park of a grocery shop in Wheaton, a northern Washington suburb. Early the next morning, a landscape gardener was fatally shot in nearby Rockville, also by a .223-calibre bullet. Then a taxi driver, at a petrol station not far away, was hit. There was another shooting half an hour later, just up the road, of a woman who was reading on a bench. Within 90 minutes, another woman was gunned down while vacuuming her van at a service station.The next day, a woman was wounded in a craft shop car park in Fredericksburg, Virginia, 80 miles from Washington.Fear reigned. People stayed indoors, afraid to go shopping or go for petrol. The authorities recommended ways to avoid becoming targets. Schoolchildren were kept inside at playtime.Then came a three-day lull. But on 7 October, Iran Brown, 13, was shot in the chest as he was dropped off at school in Bowie, Maryland, east of Washington.Charles Moose, the Montgomery County police chief, said: "Shooting a kid – it's getting to be really, really personal now." There were three more fatal shootings in Virginia the next week then another break.Then on 19 October, a man was shot outside a steakhouse in Ashland, Virginia, about 90 miles south of Washington. Three more days passed quietly before bus driver Conrad Johnson was killed in Aspen Hill, Maryland. On 24 October, police captured Muhammad and Malvo at the rest stop, about 50 miles north-west of Washington.Steve Murchake, 59, a tax accountant from Silver Spring, Maryland, remembered helicopters roaring overhead seemingly every morning as he started his commute to Herndon, Virginia, and the checkpoints that snarled Beltway traffic after nearly every shooting. Police focused on white utility vans and white box trucks, which witnesses had spotted – coincidentally, it turned out – near some of the shootings.House painter Jose Romero, 39, of Silver Spring, left his white van and took his car to work to avoid being stopped by police. Like so many others, he imagined crosshairs trained on him when he stopped for petrol.People still wonder if the pair killed more people. In 2006, Malvo reportedly confessed to four shootings in other US states, including two killings. Malvo is currently serving a life sentence in prison.

from The Scotsman