OKLAHOMA CITY - The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled late Wednesday that two death-row inmates are not entitled to know the source of the drugs that will be used to kill them.
In rejecting the inmates’ claims, the court also lifted a stay of execution that it had granted earlier in the week in a case that placed Oklahoma’s two highest courts at odds and prompted calls for impeaching justices on the Supreme Court.
Wednesday’s decision paves the way for Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner to receive lethal injections at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.
A stay issued Tuesday by Gov. Mary Fallin remains in place for Lockett, but only until Tuesday, the same day Warner is scheduled to die.
Fallin spokesman Alex Weintz has said the governor is still reviewing the court’s ruling and has not made a decision on what she will do. Weintz has said it is possible both men could be executed Tuesday.
The nine-member Oklahoma Supreme Court issued a 5-4 opinion Monday that delayed the executions until the inmates’ claims over drug-source secrecy were handled.
The Court of Criminal Appeals said it couldn’t weigh in on the delay of execution because it didn’t have the power or the authority, so the high court said a “rule of necessity” led to its decision.
Under the state constitution, the Supreme Court handles civil cases while the Court of Criminal Appeals takes those involving inmates.
A lower court had ruled that preventing the inmates from seeking information about the drugs used in lethal injections violated their rights under the state constitution.
“There was no need for the trial court to declare the secrecy provision unconstitutional in order for the condemned prisoners to discover the identity of the drug or drugs to be used in these inmates’ executions,” the Supreme Court wrote Wednesday.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Steven Taylor said the inmates’ claims are “frivolous and not grounded in the law.”
“It is my view that from the very beginning this so called ‘civil’ litigation has been frivolous and a complete waste of time and resources of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma,” Taylor wrote.
Earlier Wednesday, a member of the Oklahoma House drafted a resolution seeking the impeachment of the state Supreme Court justices who had granted the delay of execution Monday.
Republican state Rep. Mike Christian said the five justices engaged in a “willful neglect of duty.”
“This is a case of our state’s judges inserting their personal biases and political opinions into the equation,” said Christian, a former Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper.
Fallin halted Lockett’s execution Tuesday to ensure he wouldn’t be put to death before his day in court, but also said the high court strayed from its mandate when it issued its order to stop the executions Monday.
Front Section, Pages 3 on 04/24/2014