US judge orders post-mortem exam after inmate’s execution goes awry

A US judge has ordered a post-mortem exam on the body of an inmate, who was subjected to what witnesses describe as a “horrifying” execution.

Arizona District Judge Kristine Baker ordered the examination over the weekend after Governor Asa Hutchinson denied requests for an in-depth review of Kenneth Williams’ death by lethal injection.

Shawn Nolan, Williams’ lawyer, filed a motion which argued that the inmate died in agony because officials a certain sedative that was injected before the execution did not do its job properly.

If “the [drug] midazolam fails to keep the prisoner under anesthesia, the prisoner would be awake and aware but unable to move or speak or even open his eyes, so he would then look completely serene despite being in agony,” Nolan argued.

The drug in question was employed in botched executions in Oklahoma and Arizona, where witnesses said the inmates suffered excruciating pain on the gurney.

Witnesses said, Williams, convicted of murdering a 19-year-old girl in 1998, convulsed and groaned before dying. Nolan described his death throes as “horrifying.”

Aside from the examination, the judge also ordered Williams’ blood and tissue samples to be preserved.

This is while, the governor had rejected calls for anything more than a “routine” check into the execution.  Senator Trent Garner, who witnessed Williams’ death, said he did not “seem in pain.”

Meanwhile, Jason McGhee, a death-row inmate who had also been scheduled to die on Thursday, filed an emergency order after Williams’ execution.

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The state has postponed his execution along with three other inmates. They were scheduled to die before the state’s supply of sedative runs out.

The unprecedented schedule for executions have drawn sharp condemnations from rights groups and unleashed a wave of legal challenges, including a lawsuit from the company that makes one of the three drugs used in the executions.

McKesson Corp. said in a statement last week that the state had obtained the drug, called vecuronium bromide, under false pretenses and that it wanted nothing to do with executions.

The state Supreme Court ruled that authorities could use vecuronium bromide in Lee's execution, allowing his death sentence to be carried out.

Williams escaped from prison in 1999 and killed 57-year-old man to steal his vehicle. He also killed a 24-year-old delivery driver during a high-speed chase with police.

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