Deborah Denno comments to the Los Angeles Times after a controversial double execution in Oklahoma was scrubbed after the first inmate to receive an experimental three-drug cocktail writhed and grimaced on the gurney, struggled to lift his head and died of a heart attack more than 40 minutes later, officials and witnesses said.
The botched execution will have a huge effect, Deborah W. Denno, a professor at Fordham Law School and a death penalty expert, told the Los Angeles Times. “The entire world was watching this execution.”
“This is one of the worst botches that we’ve had,” said Fordham Law School’s Denno. “All of this was predictable and foreseeable. How many times does this have to take place? … We have all the evidence we need to show this is a highly problematic and potentially unconstitutional procedure.”
The American Civil Liberties of Oklahoma likened the state’s execution process to “hastily thrown together human science experiments” and called for an immediate moratorium.
Read the entire Los Angeles Times article.
