Oklahoma court stops 3 pending executions after drug glitch

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma's highest criminal court unanimously agreed today to halt all the state's scheduled executions after the prison system received the wrong drug for a lethal injection this week.

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals granted the state's request and issued indefinite stays of execution for Richard Glossip, Benjamin Cole and John Grant. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt requested the stays to give his office time to investigate why the Oklahoma Department of Corrections received the wrong drug just hours before Glossip was scheduled to be executed Wednesday.

Just hours before Glossip was set to die, prison officials opened a box of lethal drugs and realized they received potassium acetate instead of potassium chloride, the third drug used in Oklahoma's lethal injection formula.

The court ordered the state for status reports every 30 days, "including any proposed adjustments to the execution protocol."

Oklahoma's execution protocols were overhauled after last year's botched execution of Clayton Lockett, who writhed on a gurney and struggled against his restraints before being declared dead more than 40 minutes after the procedure began.

On Thursday, Robert Patton, director of Oklahoma Department of Corrections, insisted that those new protocols were properly followed. But the attorney general expressed concerns about the department's ability to properly carry out an execution.