Oklahoma acquires lethal injection drugs from compounding pharmacy

OKLAHOMA CITY - The state has acquired the drugs necessary to execute two death row inmates this month, attorneys involved in the case said.

Lawyers for death row inmates Clayton Derrell Lockett, 38, and Charles Frederick Warner, 46, said an email sent to them by the attorney general’s office said the state Corrections Department has acquired lethal doses of midazolam and pancuronium bromide from a compounding pharmacy. The state already had a supply of the third drug in the execution process, potassium chloride.

Together, those three drugs are part of a new lethal cocktail that, thanks to a March 21 change in execution protocol, the state of Oklahoma is now able to try.

That mixture has never been used in the U.S., and midazolam has only been used in a three-drug cocktail in one other state, Florida, said Jen Moreno, staff attorney at the Berkeley Law Death Penalty Clinic. She noted Oklahoma’s protocol calls for a smaller dose of midazolam than Florida’s, which raises concerns.

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