By Cody Stark
The Huntsville Item
HUNTSVILLE, Texas — Texas prison officials believe the execution procedures that are in place here would prevent anything from going wrong inside the death chamber in Huntsville.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice uses a different protocol for lethal injections than the one the that was used by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections last month in the botched execution of condemned inmate Clayton Lockett.
Lockett died of an apparent heart attack more than 40 minutes after the lethal injection was administered when a collapsed vein did not allow all the drugs to enter his body.
Texas has used a single dose of a powerful sedative to kill inmates since 2012. Oklahoma used a three-drug cocktail in Lockett’s execution, which was the first of two scheduled for that night.
“The execution protocol in Texas is different than Oklahoma and I do not believe a comparison can be made,” TDCJ spokesman Jason Clark said. “TDCJ uses a single, lethal dose of pentobarbital and has carried out 33 executions using that drug since 2012 without complications.
“With that being said,” Clark added, “the Oklahoma incident does not appear to be related to their choice of drugs.
Media reports indicate there were complications with a single IV line inserted into the offender’s groin which was covered by a sheet.”
Texas’ death penalty procedure calls for a trained medical technician to take as much time as needed to find a suitable vein for an IV to be inserted into the condemned inmate. The protocol also requires a second IV to be in place in case one of the lines fails.
According to reports, Oklahoma prison officials tried for 51 minutes to find a vein in Lockett’s arms and feet before the lethal injection IV was placed in his groin area and covered with a sheet. That vein collapsed during the procedure and 21 minutes passed before the leak was discovered.
Texas has an execution drug team, which must have at least one experienced person certified or licensed as a medical assistant, phlebotomist, emergency medical technician, paramedic or military corpsman.
Once the IV is visibly placed in the inmate’s vein, a normal saline solution is administered at a slow rate so a prison official can make sure ‘the flow is uninterrupted.
The drug team also has access to a second lethal dose of pentobarbital in case it is needed.
“We believe there are measures in place to ensure that executions are carried out without an incident like that which occurred in Oklahoma,” Clark said.
The next execution in Texas is set for August. Convicted killer Robert James Campbell was scheduled last week to be the first inmate in the United State’s to be executed since Lockett’s death.
A federal appeals court halted the execution May 13 so his attorney’s could pursue an appeal claiming Campbell is mentally impaired, making him ineligible for the death penalty.
Copyright 2014 The Huntsville Item