|
 At nearly the same time, Florida executed Johnny Kormondy, 42, for
the fatal 1993 shooting of Pensacola banker Gary McAdams and the
rape of his wife, according to the state Department of Corrections.
Both executions had been delayed as the U.S. Supreme Court
considered appeals concerning secrecy surrounding the source of the
lethal injection cocktail and what is in the mix.
Warner, 47, said he was poked five times and was quoted as saying:
"It feels like acid," as he lay on the Oklahoma death chamber gurney
with IVs in his arms, a prisons spokesman said.
Lawyers for death row inmates said the sedative midazolam, used by
both states in their lethal injection mix, could not achieve the
level of unconsciousness required for surgery and was therefore
unsuitable for executions.
Both states have said the drug is effective and their chemical
combinations are appropriate.
 In an unusually lengthy dissent in the Oklahoma case, Justice Sonia
Sotomayor said a stay was in order to examine an increasing reliance
on new and scientifically untested methods of execution.
"Petitioners have committed horrific crimes, and should be punished.
But the Eighth Amendment guarantees that no one should be subjected
to an execution that causes searing, unnecessary pain before death,"
Sotomayor wrote in the dissent joined by three other justices.
Last April, Oklahoma death row inmate Clayton Lockett, who received
midazolam, was seen by witnesses twisting on the death row gurney
after troubles with the IV caused the lethal injection mix to be
improperly administered.
[to top of second column] |
Officials halted the execution about 15 minutes after it began, but
Lockett died about a half hour later from toxic chemicals that
accumulated in his tissue.
The inmate executed in Florida, Kormondy, has spent almost half of
his life on death row. He was convicted in the killing of McAdams
and rape of his wife when the couple came home from her 20th high
school reunion on July 11, 1993.
His execution was the 21st carried out under Governor Rick Scott,
trying the mark set under former Governor Jeb Bush. Bush served
eight years, while Scott, a fellow Republican, is starting his
second four-year term in office.
(Reporting by Bill Cotterell in Tallahassee, Fla., and Heide Brandes
in Oklahoma City; Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Eric Walsh
and Peter Cooney)
[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
Oklahoma
and Florida execute convicted murderers
