After a high-profile botched execution, as well as numerous others nationwide, Oklahoma is finally doing something to change capital punishment, but what they are doing is the wrong thing.  Many of the problems are due to experimentation with various drugs and their dosages after access to traditional execution drugs has been cut off.  Unfortunately, instead of banning the death penalty, or even putting it on hold until a more humane method can be found (though I would argue that no execution can be humane), the experimentation will continue, but with more drugs and less transparency.

As The Oklahoman reports:

The April 29 execution of Clayton Derrell Lockett lasted 43 minutes and sparked an Oklahoma Public Safety Department investigation, which included recommended changes to protocol.

Lockett was killed with a three-drug cocktail never before used in the United States, and the new protocol allows the state to continue using the most controversial of the drugs, midazolam. It also allows the state to continue using a single IV in the femoral vein, a procedure the state Public Safety Department investigation found to be central to problems that occurred during the procedure. Media witnesses for executions have been cut by more than half, from 12 to five.

Midazolam also was used in two recent problematic executions, one in Ohio and another in Arizona. The new protocol increases the amount of the drug by five times. It also requires the medical professional inserting a single vein IV be trained to perform the procedure. Traditional lethal injections in Oklahoma utilize two IVs, one in each arm.

So, a drug that has been problematic in numerous cases will continue to be used, just in greater doses.  And, just in case things continue to go wrong, fewer than half as many journalists will be allowed to witness the procedure.

Both these developments are troubling.  The drug involved, midazolam, has not been proven to work properly.  So, increasing the dosage, even by five times, does not guarantee that it will now work the way they hope it will.  This means that the next person executed in Oklahoma by this method will be nothing more than a lab rat, as they tweak the procedure to try to find the best way to end a human life.

And, while I suspect no member of the media enjoys watching a person being executed, their role in the process is vital.  It is essential that the state be accountable for how they carry out the sentence they have imposed.  They must answer for mistakes they make, not try to cover them up.  Especially now, when scrutiny is high, they should be making efforts to be more transparent, not less.  Limiting media access shows they are trying to hide something.

The best possible solution to the difficulties in executing people would be to just stop executing people.  But, short of that, it must be done in the most humane way possible, with full transparency and accountability.  And, citizens must be sure their state knows what it is doing.  These new measures prove that they do not.