Official says John Marion Grant's Execution Wasn't Inhumane b/c He Was Sedated and its Normal to Have (24) Convulsions Prior to Vomiting, Plus Black Man Cursed @ Authorities Before They Murdered Him

From [HERE] and [HERE] At 4:25 pm CST on Thursday, October 28, John Marion Grant became the first inmate executed by Oklahoma after nearly seven years. The execution occurred shortly after the United States Supreme Court vacated a Tenth Circuit stay of execution. The Tenth Circuit had entered an injunction in a long running lawsuit enjoining the imminent execution of John Grant and Julius Jones before, in the words of the Tenth Circuit, they are able to “present what may be a viable Eighth Amendment claim to the federal courts." The Supreme Court’s one sentence order(link is external), entered over the dissent of Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, granted Oklahoma’s emergency request to vacate the stay without explanation.  

Media witness Sean Murphy, of the Associated Press, reported in the post-execution news conference that Grant began convulsing almost immediately after the midazolam was injected into his body. After being administered “[t]he first drug — the midazolam — he exhaled deeply, he began convulsing about two dozen times — full-body convulsions,” Murphy said. “Then he began to vomit, which covered his face, then began to run down his neck and the side of his face.”

After prison personnel wiped the sick off Grant’s face and neck, he began to convulse again and again vomited, Murphy said. [MORE]

The Oklahoma Department of Corrections held a press conference Friday, one day after John Grant became the first Oklahoma inmate executed since 2015.

Oklahoma Department of Corrections Director Scott Crow [racist suspect in photo] addressed the timeline of the execution and the events leading up to it. 

He said Grant was agitated to the point of becoming "verbally abusive" on Thursday. Crow said Grant used expletives as staff tried working with him during the day.

Once Grant was in the execution chamber, Crow said Grant's behavior "continued to escalate" and he continued to scream expletives to witnesses and staffers.

Crow said the first round of drugs was administered at 4:09, and with a few seconds, Grant started the process of being sedated. A few seconds later, Crow said Grant let out a gasp of air but kept breathing and began to "lightly snore."

At 4:10 p.m., Crow said Grant started to dry-heave prior to regurgitating while on the table. 

"There are some that referred to that as convulsing," Crow said. "As he started that process, I conferred with the physician we had on-site monitoring the process. He advised me that regurgitation is not an uncommon occurrence with someone undergoing sedation."

Crow estimated the number of times Grant convulsed throughout the whole process was about 10 but other witnesses on Thursday pegged the number as two dozen.

At that point, Crow said, Grant was sedated based on his behavior and the monitoring equipment in the room.

"Even though he was sedated, he regurgitated for several seconds. I advised the physician that I wanted him to go into the room and tilt the inmate's head and wipe the inmate's face simply from a humanity and dignity perspective."

At no point in time during the regurgitation period was the process stopped, Crow said. [MORE]

The sedative midazolam has been at the center of a years-long lawsuit brought by more than two dozen Oklahoma death row inmates arguing that Oklahoma’s lethal injection protocol poses a risk of severe pain in violation of the Eighth Amendment.  That lawsuit arose from two botched executions in 2014 and 2015 and was scheduled for trial in February 2022, after the district court had already determined based on a robust summary judgment record that there are issues of fact concerning whether the Oklahoma’s execution method presents a substantial risk of severe pain, and whether alternative methods proposed by the plaintiffs are feasible and readily implemented. On April 29, 2014, a botched execution that used midazolam left Clayton Locket writing and clenching his teeth, causing Oklahoma prison officials to halt the execution before his eventual death from a heart attack. On April 15, 2015, after being administered midazolam, Charles Warner said, “My body is on fire.”  Witnesses reported they saw twitching in Warner’s neck about three minutes after the execution started that lasted for about seven minutes before he stopped breathing. But since Oklahoma’s second drug is a paralytic that would have prevented Warner from moving, “acting as a chemical veil,” according to his attorney, “we will never know whether he experienced the intense pain of suffocation and burning that would result from injecting a conscious person with vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride.”