Oklahoma carries out first execution since botched execution in 2014

The 3rd Execution of 2015
Oklahoma executed Charles Fredrick Warner on January 15, 2015, reported The Associated Press.  It was the state's first lethal injection since a botched one last spring, and it carried out the punishment with a three-drug method that Florida used for an execution earlier the same night.

Warner's execution for the 1997 killing of an 11-month-old girl in Oklahoma City lasted 18 minutes. Prison officials declared him dead at 7:28 p.m. CST 12 minutes after the Florida execution.

"Before I give my final statement, I'll tell you they poked me five times. It hurt. It feels like acid," Warner said before his execution began. He added, "I'm not a monster. I didn't do everything they said I did."

After the first drug, the sedative midazolam, was administered and a microphone inside the death chamber was turned off, Warner said, "My body is on fire." But he showed no obvious signs of distress.

Witnesses said they saw slight twitching in Warner's neck about three minutes after the lethal injection started. The twitching lasted about seven minutes until he stopped breathing.

Warner's attorney, Madeline Cohen, who witnessed the execution, said there was no way to know if Warner suffered because the second drug, a paralytic, would have prevented him from moving.

"Because Oklahoma injected Mr. Warner with a paralytic tonight, acting as a chemical veil, we will never know whether he experienced the intense pain of suffocation and burning that would result from injecting a conscious person with rocuronium bromide and potassium chloride," Cohen said in a statement.

"Justice was served tonight as the state executed Charles Warner for the heinous crime of raping and murdering an infant," Gov. Mary Fallin said.

It was the second time Oklahoma used midazolam as part of a three-drug method, which had been challenged by Warner and other death row inmates as presenting an unconstitutional risk of pain and suffering.

Warner, 47, was originally scheduled to be executed in April on the same night as Clayton Lockett, who began writhing on the gurney, moaning and trying to lift his head after he'd been declared unconscious.

A state investigation determined that a single intravenous line failed and that the drugs were administered locally instead of directly into Lockett's bloodstream. Oklahoma put its executions on hold for nine months after the problematic execution.

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