Oklahoma examines what went wrong in botched execution

By Heide Brandes OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) – The autopsy of an inmate who died, apparently of a heart attack, during a botched execution was begun on Wednesday in Oklahoma, while Governor Mary Fallin called for an investigation into what went wrong in the death chamber. Convicted murderer and rapist Clayton Lockett died on Tuesday minutes after a doctor had called a halt to the procedure because of problems with the lethal injection, raising questions about new death penalty cocktails used by Oklahoma and other states. The autopsy will examine the injection sites on Lockett’s arms and the toxicology of the drugs in his system that were administered in the lethal injection, according to medical examiner’s spokeswoman Amy Elliott said. The governor told a news conference she had called for investigations not only into Lockett’s cause of death, but into whether the Department of Corrections followed execution protocols and even the protocols themselves.