Oklahoma executes first inmate since botched execution

(Image credit: Erik S. Lesser/Getty Images)

last updated 16 January 2015

On Thursday night, Oklahoma put to death its first death row inmate since a botched execution took place last year.

Charles Frederick Warner, convicted in 1999 of killing a baby, was declared dead at 7:28 p.m., CBS News reports. A witness, identified by CBS affiliate KWTV as Sean Murphy of The Associated Press, said that Warner complained of extreme pain, saying: "It feels like acid. My body is on fire. No one should go through this. I'm not afraid to die, we's all going to die."

Warner had been scheduled to be executed the same night as Clayton Lockett in April 2014. Lockett was given a three-drug formula that included the sedative midazolam, and was seen moaning and writhing on the gurney after the drugs were administered and he'd been declared unconscious. Warner's execution was postponed, and along with other death row inmates, he challenged the use of the sedative. The Supreme Court voted 5-4 against a stay of execution, and Warner was injected with midazolam Thursday night.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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