"Oklahoma’s
top criminal court agreed Friday to stop all executions indefinitely
after confusion over a lethal injection drug shipment led to a stay for
an execution, although officials maintained their refusal to divulge the
identity of the state’s lethal drug provider. Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin on Wednesday issued a last-minute order delaying the execution of Richard Glossip,
whose case has garnered international attention, after the state’s
Corrections Department received potassium acetate instead of potassium
chloride from a pharmaceutical provider. The shipment of the wrong drug
arrived just hours beforehand. The state’s Court of Criminal Appeals on Friday accepted Attorney
General Scott Pruitt’s request for a stay of three executions set for
the next two months while authorities investigate the matter. His office
declined to identify the pharmaceutical company that sent the drug,
saying that Oklahoma law protects the company’s identity for its safety. State officials said the shipment of potassium acetate — instead of
the potassium chloride mandated in Oklahoma’s lethal injection protocol —
was not a mistake, although they acknowledged that the drug was outside their protocol. “I don’t think it was a mistake, because we were told potassium
acetate is medically interchangeable with potassium chloride,”
Corrections Department spokesman Alex Gerszewski told Al Jazeera. Glossip’s attorney, Don Knight, disputed that claim, saying, “The
truth is [state officials] didn’t know what would happen if they pumped
potassium acetate and not potassium chloride.” “The spin they’re putting on it doesn’t change the clear mistakes
that were made,” he said. “There was protocol violated. By whom and when
were they made? Those are clear questions, and I don’t — and no one
should — trust [the state’s] answers.” Despite those concerns, authorities refused to name the drug company involved. “Because of threats providers have received in the past, Oklahoma law
protects the confidentiality of the state’s drug provider,” the
attorney general’s spokesman Aaron Cooper told Al Jazeera, citing a
“confidentiality provision” that effectively conceals the identity of
all people involved in administering the execution, including the drug
providers. He did not respond to further questions regarding the nature or source of the threats. Oklahoma is one of many states, including Texas and Louisiana, with laws protecting the identities of lethal injection drug providers. Death penalty opponents say the alleged threats against drug
providers are an attempt to avoid discussion of the circumstances
leading to the stay on executions.........Knight called on the public to “stay focused on what actually
happened” in the days leading up to Glossip’s scheduled execution. “It
looks like somebody or more than one person really screwed up in a case
watched by the entire world.”
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/10/2/oklahoma-officials-glossip-lethal-drug-mix-up.html