Oklahoma executed a death row inmate on Thursday for killing a baby in 1997 in the state’s first lethal injection since a botched one in 2014.
Prison officials declared Charles Frederick Warner dead at 7.28 pm CST (0128 GMT) on Thursday. It was the second time Oklahoma used the sedative midazolam as part of a three-drug method, which had been challenged by Warner and other death row inmates as presenting an unconstitutional risk of pain and suffering.
Warner was originally scheduled to be executed in April on the same night as Clayton Lockett, who began writhing on the gurney, moaning and trying to lift his head after he’d been declared unconscious.
Warner was executed for killing his roommate’s infant daughter in Oklahoma City.
Earlier, Florida executed Johnny Shane Kormondy, 42, for killing a man during a 1993 home-invasion robbery in Pensacola.
After Lockett’s execution was botched, a state investigation determined that a single intravenous line failed and that the drugs were administered locally instead of directly into his bloodstream.
Since then, Oklahoma has ordered new medical equipment such as backup IV lines and an ultrasound machine for finding veins, and renovated the execution chamber with new audio and video equipment to help the execution team spot potential problems.
