31 May 2022 :
Autopsy Reports: Recently Executed Oklahoma Prisoners Had Fluid in Lungs
Oklahoma has executed 4 men over the past seven months. They all had excess fluid in their lungs when they died, autopsy reports from the Oklahoma Chief Medical Examiner’s office show.
Dr. Ross Miller noted minimal pulmonary edema in the autopsy report of Gilbert Postelle, who the state executed on Feb. 17. Postelle’s lungs had a combined weight of 1,220 grams; the adult average is between 900 and 1,000 grams. Previous media reports noted that John Grant, Bigler Stouffer and Donald Grant suffered from the condition at the time of their death. Oklahoma Watch obtained Postelle’s autopsy report through an open records request. Pulmonary edema, which is typically caused by heart failure, is a condition where fluid accumulates in the lungs and makes it difficult to breathe. Symptoms range from mild to severe and life-threatening.
Attorneys representing Oklahoma death row prisoners claim that pulmonary edema develops minutes after the sedative midazolam, the first of three drugs in the state’s lethal injection protocol, is administered. They argue that the prisoner is likely to remain conscious and experience severe pain as fluid builds in the lungs.
Dr. Mark Edgar, an anatomical pathologist at Emory University, testified during a March trial over the constitutionality of Oklahoma’s lethal injection protocol. He told the court that there’s at least an 85% chance of pulmonary edema in executions where the midazolam is administered.
“The pulmonary edema in most cases Dr. Edgar reviewed was ‘severe,’ so he would expect those prisoners felt ‘a sense of impending doom of asphyxiation, of drowning, of terror, all of those things,’” the prisoners’ attorneys wrote in a post-trial report filed earlier this month. Attorneys for the state contend that midazolam adequately renders a prisoner insensate to pain. They also note that pulmonary edema does not always produce acute symptoms and is a common finding in drug overdose autopsies.
“Even if inmates were conscious of the pulmonary edema later found in their autopsies, the evidence is still insufficient to show they were sure or very likely in severe pain,” the state attorneys wrote in their post-trial brief.
A verdict from U.S. District Judge Stephen Friot could come at any time. His decision will have immediate implications for capital punishment in Oklahoma.
