In an execution that last 18 minutes, Warner said “My body is on fire,” witnesses told the Associated Press. The 47 year old showed no signs of physical distress, however, and was pronounced dead at 7:28 PM CT.
Warner originally was scheduled to be executed in April on the same night the state executed Clayton Lockett.
That night, Lockett was injected with an untested mixture of drugs never before administered in an execution. He regained consciousness minutes into the execution and began writhing in pain. Lockett died of cardiac arrest after about 45 minutes after first being sedated.
The bungled execution caused Oklahoma to put a moratorium on all scheduled executions, including that of Warner, and the state overhauled its death chamber protocols. An investigation found that a single intravenous line failed, causing the drugs to be administered locally instead of directly into Lockett’s bloodstream.
"Before I give my final statement, I'll tell you they poked me five times,” Warner said prior to the execution, the AP reported. “It hurt. It feels like acid."
— Abolish DeathPenalty (@ncadp) January 12, 2015
At that time, however, executioners had not administered any drugs to Warner, according to witnesses.
"I'm not a monster. I didn't do everything they said I did,” added Warner, who was convicted of raping and murdering an 11-month-old girl in 1997.
Warner was first injected with the controversial sedative midazolam, which the state also administered to Lockett. Critics say the drug does not sufficiently induce unconsciousness in prisoners, causing agonizing physical pain and mental distress.
Prison officials injected Warner with five times the amount of midazolam that was used in Lockett’s execution.
Witnesses reported seeing slight twitching in Warner's neck about three minutes after the execution began. The twitching lasted about seven minutes until he stopped breathing.
Warner's attorney, Madeline Cohen, 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.
The execution came after a divided U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling said it wouldn't consider an appeal over the drugs.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor highlighted the importance of questions about the new drugs.
"Petitioners have committed horrific crimes, and should be punished,” she wrote. "But the Eighth Amendment guarantees that no one should be subjected to an execution that causes searing, unnecessary pain before death."
Florida executed Johnny Shane Kormondy last night using the same combination of drugs. Kormondy, 42, was convicted of killing a man in a 1993 home-invasion robbery in Pensacola.
