John Paul Stevens is right: The death penalty is unconstitutional

Oklahoma's botched execution of Clayton Lockett has only underscored the barbarism of capital punishment

Death penalty
(Image credit: (Shepard Sherbell/Corbis))

On Tuesday night, the state of Oklahoma executed Clayton Lockett — sort of. After a horribly botched execution that saw Lockett writhe and gasp in clear agony for 40 minutes, he finally died of a heart attack.

The state of Oklahoma is hardly squeamish about the death penalty, since it executes by far more people per capita than any other American state. But this gruesome torture and indirect execution was too much for Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin (R), who stayed the execution of Charles Warner (who was also scheduled to die on April 28) for two weeks. This particularly inept deployment of capital punishment not only reflects serious procedural flaws in Oklahoma's justice system, but is another illustration that a "humane death penalty" is a contradiction in terms.

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Scott Lemieux

Scott Lemieux is a professor of political science at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, N.Y., with a focus on the Supreme Court and constitutional law. He is a frequent contributor to the American Prospect and blogs for Lawyers, Guns and Money.