USA - Oklahoma. Lawsuit Following Botched Execution Names Participating Doctor.

Lawsuit Following Botched Execution Names Participating Doctor. On October 14 a lawsuit was filed by the family of Clayton Lockett against the state of Oklahoma for damages related to his botched execution in April. The suit alleges “unsound procedures and inadequately trained personnel” and claims that Dr. Johnny Zellmer was the physician present at Lockett's execution. The family asserts that Zellmer, “was willing to, and did in fact, conduct the medical experiment engaged in by Defendants to kill Clayton Lockett regardless of the fact that these chemicals had never been approved or tested by any certifying body.” Oklahoma law makes the names of its execution team, including participating doctors, secret. In Lockett's execution, most of the execution team was out of view of witnesses, but the doctor who pronounced death was visible. The legal complaint, lodged with the federal court for the western district of Oklahoma on Tuesday, names Dr Johnny Zellmer as a defendant both in his individual and official capacity. The lawsuit accuses him of engaging "in human medical experimentation in torturing Clayton Lockett to death", and says that his participation in the execution was against international protocols established at the post-2nd world war Nuremberg trials of Nazi doctors.