CALGARY - A lawyer representing a Canadian on death row in Montana says the botched execution of an Oklahoma inmate underscores the risk of exposing inmates to pain and suffering.
Convicted killer Clayton Lockett began writhing, clenching his teeth and straining to lift his head off the pillow this week after he was supposedly rendered unconscious by the first of three drugs in the state's new lethal injection combination.
He died of a heart attack about a half-hour later.
Ron Waterman, from the American Civil Liberties Union in Montana, began a lawsuit in 2008 on behalf of Canadian Ronald Smith arguing lethal injections are cruel and unusual punishment and violate the right to human dignity.
Montana District Court Judge Jeffrey Sherlock ruled in September 2012 that the injections were unconstitutional and questioned the method used to determine if an inmate is actually unconscious before receiving an injection.
Waterman says it's too soon to say if the latest incident will impact Smith's case but it does underline the argument he has been making all along.
Smith was convicted in 1983 for shooting Harvey Madman Junior and Thomas Running Rabbit while he was high on drugs and alcohol near East Glacier, Montana.
He refused a plea deal that would have seen him avoid death row and spend the rest of his life in prison, then pleaded guilty and asked for and was given a death sentence.
Smith later had a change of heart and has had a number of execution dates set and overturned.
