Oklahoma's attorney general agreed to a six-month stay of execution Thursday for Charles Warner, one of the men who was supposed to be put to death last week in the state's highly-publicized botched execution.
Warner, seen here, was re-scheduled to be executed May 13 — two weeks after his original date. But his attorney's requested a delay so investigators could complete an investigation into the death of Clayton Lockett. (Via KOKH)
"Lockett died 43 minutes after the execution started of an apparent heart attack. The Oklahoma Medical Examiner's Office sent Lockett's body to Dallas for an independent autopsy." (Via KWTV)
Those autopsy results are pending, but The Washington Post reports Lockett apparently died after the vein where an IV was inserted collapsed during the delivery of a controversial drug cocktail.
The Guardian reports the drugs had never been used in that dosage in an American execution.
Before last week's execution-gone-awry, attorney's for both Lockett and Warner fought and lost in court to have the source of the drug cocktail revealed. KJRH reports the state denied that request saying Lockett and Warner weren't entitled to know the origin of the drugs to be used in their executions.
While Warner's attorney Madeline Cohen praised the attorney general's decision, she told MSNBC she's skeptical of the state's investigation into Lockett's death: "We hope that a truly independent investigation will be possible, so that we find out what caused Mr. Lockett’s agonizing death, and can bring transparency to Oklahoma’s execution practices that are currently shrouded in secrecy.”
Michael Thompson, the state's public safety secretary, has 180 days to complete the investigation. Oklahoma's attorney general's office suggested re-scheduling Warner's execution to November 13.
