The States of Georgia and Missouri each executed a man by lethal injection on Tuesday night, marking the resumption of capital punishment administration in the U.S. after a botched procedure in April in Oklahoma caused nationwide outrage for inflicting “cruel and unusual punishment,” upon an inmate.
At 11:56 pm local time Georgia executed Marcus Wellons, who raped and killed a 15-year-old in 1989, and at midnight John Winfield was put to death in Missouri for killing two women in 1996.
On April 29 when death row inmate Clayton Lockett was strapped down to a gurney in Oklahoma, he “began writhing, clenching his teeth and straining to lift his head after he was injected with lethal drugs.”
The procedure was botched so badly that Lockett died of a heart attack shortly thereafter.
On the heels of widespread condemnation of the procedure, even U.S. President Barack Obama stepped into the controversy describing the treatment of Lockett as “inhumane,” And Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin subsequently agreed to a six-month stay of execution for another inmate while the State conducted an investigation of the death of Lockett.
This week both Georgia and Missouri executed the men using a single-drug protocol that relies on the administration of a massive overdose of animal euthanasia drug pentobarbital.
On Wednesday, a third man, John Ruthell Henry, was scheduled to be executed at 6 pm local time in Florida, a State that uses a three-drug protocol.
