USA - Oklahoma. No executions for at least 5 months

The Oklahoma attorney general, the Republican Scott Pruitt, has agreed not to seek any execution until 150 days after the investigation is concluded, its results are made public and his office is informed that the state is able to comply with its own protocol. With this commitment in hand, Pruitt and the attorneys of the three convicts, whom the southern state intended to execute over the next few weeks, came to an agreement by which both sides are suspending a court case on the legality of the lethal injections facing the convicts. The attorney general and the lawyers agreed that the case should not proceed until it is discovered why Oklahoma twice obtained the wrong drug, though the final decision is up to a judge. Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin halted the execution of Richard Glossip last Sept. 30 after authorities found that the drug to be injected was potassium acetate rather than potassium chloride, the one specified in the protocol. It was then that the execution last January of convict Charles Warner with potassium acetate was made public. Oklahoma has been trying for a year and a half to execute Glossip, Benjamin Cole and John Grant, but the succession of errors committed by its Corrections Department and the consequent legal battles have led to the current situation. It all began in April 2014, when the executioner administered the wrong drug to Clayton Lockett, who agonized 43 minutes before dying. That case took Oklahoma to the United States Supreme Court, which decided in June against the plaintiff prisoners. Now, with the mistaken drugs revealed last Sept. 30, a long period without executions is expected in this state, which only trails Texas as the state with the most applications of capital punishment.