Deborah Denno comments in the National Law Journal on the botched execution of an Oklahoma inmate, which could breathe new life into lawsuits challenging state laws that keep certain information about lethal injections secret, according to death penalty experts.
“This case adds a lot to this factual pedestal on which to raise this issue higher and more strongly,” said Deborah Denno, a professor at Fordham University School of Law in New York who specializes in criminal procedure and the death penalty. “Courts are going to have to think twice, without coming back and providing more information about what’s going on. It’s pretty clear if this process in Oklahoma had been transparent, what happened … to Mr. Lockett would never have occurred.”
The startling facts surrounding his execution could change the game, Denno said, who’s been following executions for 20 years.
“I’ve never seen a situation where the president of the United States has come out and said a botched execution is inhumane,” she said. “It’s going to be very hard for states now to turn a blind eye to these kinds of botches.”
Read the entire National Law Journal article.