The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Oklahoma to carry out its first execution in more than six years after the state attorney general argued the families of murder victims have waited long enough.
In a 5-3 decision, justices vacated two stays of executions, just two hours before the first one was scheduled to begin.
Convicted murderer John Marion Grant, 60, convulsed repeatedly and vomited as the lethal injection procedure began at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, witnesses said. He was pronounced dead at 4:21 p.m.
Up next is high-profile death row inmate Julius Jones.
He is set to be executed Nov. 18 for a 1999 fatal shooting in Edmond despite his highly publicized innocence claim. Millions have signed a petition in his support, and hundreds have participated in marches calling for his freedom.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday granted both inmates stays of execution. Attorney General John O’Connor immediately went to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Corrections officials moved forward with preparations for Thursday’s execution even while the stay was still in effect, over the objections of Grant’s attorneys.
“Mr. Grant has received two separate dosages of Xanax, as permitted by the execution protocol, and was X-rayed,” his attorneys reported in a legal filing.
The Supreme Court lifted the stays about 2 p.m. Thursday Oklahoma time, without explanation.
Not involved in the decision was Justice Neil Gorsuch, who served on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver before joining the Supreme Court.
What happened to Grant at the start of the execution almost certainly will become part of an ongoing legal challenge to Oklahoma death penalty protocol.
He had complained in a lawsuit — along with Jones and 30 other death row inmates — that the lethal injection procedure violates a constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
The inmates specifically complained a sedative, midazolam, does not work and will not prevent them from feeling horrible pain,
An Oklahoma City federal judge plans to hold a trial next year over the legal challenge.
“Based on the reporting of the eyewitnesses to the execution, for the third time in a row, Oklahoma’s execution protocol did not work as it was designed to,” an attorney for the death row inmates said after the execution.
“This is why the 10th Circuit stayed John Grant’s execution and this is why the U.S. Supreme Court should not have lifted the stay. There should be no more executions in Oklahoma until we go to trial in February to address the state’s problematic lethal injection protocol,” attorney Dale Baich said.
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals scheduled executions for Grant and Jones after they were kicked out of the lawsuit.
They were kicked out in August because they “declined to propose an alternative method of carrying out their sentence of death.”
In his 43-page order, U.S. District Judge Stephen Friot pointed out the U.S. Supreme Court made that a requirement to prevent round after round of litigation over execution procedures.
Jones and Grant did not check a box for religious and moral reasons, their attorneys said. They and other inmates put four alternatives in a legal filing in keeping with what the Supreme Court required, the attorneys also argued.
In granting the stay Wednesday, two of the judges at the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed.
“We find nothing in the relevant case law that specifically requires a prisoner to designate a method of execution to be used in his case by ‘checking a box’ when the prisoner has already identified in his complaint the very same alternative methods given as choices on the form,” they wrote.
Attorneys for the state told the U.S. Supreme Court the granting of the stays was a grievous error.
They argued it was particularly unfair to the family members of the victims because it puts them “through yet another postponement … on claims that have no merit.”
The victims’ families “do not deserve the re-traumatization, dashed expectations and delayed justice continuing the stays would entail,” they argued.
Attorneys for Jones and Grant countered that the federal judge in Oklahoma City “has already determined … that there are issues of fact concerning whether the State’s execution method presents a substantial risk of severe pain … and has set the matter for trial in four months”
“Oklahoma cannot be permitted to execute these Respondents on the eve of their ‘presenting what may be a viable Eighth Amendment claim to the federal courts,'” they argued.
Jones, 41, still could avoid execution. The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board is set to meet Monday morning to consider his clemency request.
Gov. Kevin Stitt will have the final say if clemency is recommended.
Execution dates for five other inmates also have been scheduled for the coming months.
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