The state of Georgia believes it has the right mix to take the life of an inmate condemned to death. Across the nation, states halted plans to perform lethal injections after Oklahoma botched the execution of Clayton Lockett. The lethal mix intended to sedate Lockett and kill him with a Barbiturate overdose failed to work as planned. Prior inmates had been executed in durations that lasted upwards of seven minutes.
In the case of Lockett, the lethal does failed to kill him. Instead, he was subjected to what can persuasively called “cruel and unusual punishment”. In his case, prison officials left him languishing on the gurney until a heart attack ended his life. His execution outlasted the prior six death row inmates combined.
Now, Georgia is set to execute 59-year-old African-American Marcus Wellons for the rape & strangulation murder of a 15-year-old girl back in 1989. At issue is that primary manufacturer of pentobarbital, Danish company Lundbeck, has issued an embargo on the sale of the product to the United States to prevent its use in executions. That has left states scrambling for new, untested, cocktails of drugs designed to kill death row inmates. Oklahoma had created their own recipe which differed from what Florida was able to use for lethal injections.
If Wellons receives a last minute reprieve, it will be the second time he has escaped the jaws of death. He was spared from execution in 1997 when the state Supreme Court issued a stay to allow his newly assigned defense lawyer time to review his death row appeal.