John David Duty
Encyclopedia
John David Duty was an American who was executed
in Oklahoma
for first-degree murder
. According to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections
, he is the first person in the United States
to have been put to death with pentobarbital
. A nationwide shortage of another drug led the state to incorporate the substitution into their protocol for lethal injection
s. Duty's case gained media attention because pentobarbital had typically been used to euthanize animals
.
Duty was sentenced to death for strangling a fellow inmate at Oklahoma State Penitentiary
in December 2001. At the time, Duty had been serving a life sentence
for a 1978 conviction of rape
, robbery
and shooting with intent to kill. He did not contest the murder charge and stated that he would kill again if he was not executed.
Duty later filed appeals that the change to the method of execution could be inhumane, but was denied. Though his case had gone all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court
, opponents of capital punishment
claimed that Duty had manipulated the system to be executed as a method of escape from life imprisonment. He was put to death at the same penitentiary where he had committed the murder nearly nine years earlier.
in 1950, but his birth certificate listed Duty as his surname. According to Duty, he lost an eye due to an accident in the third grade and suffered a head injury from a collapsed brick wall; the latter incident led him to be hospitalized for scarlet fever
. Duty's mother passed away to illness in Altus, Oklahoma
at the age of 46 on August 24, 1973.
Duty worked as a manager at Central Manufacturing in Vernon, Texas
before being employed at Sonic Drive-In
and PepsiCo
in Wichita Falls, Texas
, which lies south of the border with Oklahoma
. He and his wife Pam had two sons and a daughter.
, Duty raped Hall and shot her in the back of the head three times with a .22 caliber pistol. Trombitas then hit her with a stick, which Duty identified as a broom handle. Though left for dead, Hall was able to walk a mile (1.6 km) to a house for help and recovered at Tillman County Memorial Hospital. The two men drove off to Frederick
, then Electra
, and proceeded to Fort Worth
. Upon hearing a radio report about her on the next day, Duty said, "I was surprised that she was still alive." Duty returned to Altus the following month, presuming that law enforcement officers were going to catch up with him anyway. He was arrested on the street after calling the police and hanging up from a payphone
at another Jiffy Mart near the downtown square.
In July 1978, Duty was placed on trial in the Jackson County Courthouse
before Judge Weldon Ferris while represented by Clyde Amyx and John Wampler. Duty stated that he had no criminal record besides three traffic violations, and that he felt that he could be rehabilitated in prison. He pleaded guilty on July 18 to charges of rape and shooting with intent to kill in Tillman County and was also convicted of robbery in neighboring Jackson County
. Under cross-examination by prosecutor Mike Evans, Duty stated that he had been depressed and had been drinking for two days before the crime, which he admitted was his idea. Judge Ferris sentenced Duty to serve concurrent life terms
for the charges of robbery, rape and shooting with intent to kill, and 20 years for kidnapping. Trombitas was sentenced to 25 years for armed robbery and 20 years for kidnapping.
in McAlester
, Oklahoma
. Officials did not know what prompted Duty, who had entered the unit for treatment, to take hostages as he did not make any demands. Duty soon released six of the hostages unharmed, and let nurse Virginia Nelson go about two hours later. The last remaining hostage, psychologist Jim Fenwick, took Duty into his office and conducted negotiations until Duty surrendered at 4:02 pm on the same day.
On December 19, Duty offered Wise some cigarettes in exchange for allowing himself to be tied up to make the guards think that he had been taken hostage, with the goal of having Duty transferred into administrative security. The prosecutor's report stated that after tying Wise's hands and feet behind his back, Duty strangled him to death with a shoelace. Duty then wrote a letter to Wise's mother Mary, in which he stated: "Well by the time you get this letter you will already know that your son is dead. I know now because I just killed him an hour ago. Gee you'd think I'd be feeling some remorse but I'm not." The letter was intercepted at the prison.
on June 4, 2002, Duty asked Judge Steven Taylor to enter a guilty plea to the murder and requested the death penalty, against the advice of his defense counsel. On October 28 of that year, Duty was deemed competent to enter the plea after court-ordered evaluations by the Carl Albert Community Mental Health Center and Eastern Oklahoma State Hospital. While testifying on his own behalf, Duty declined to present any mitigating evidence and said that he preferred death over spending a life sentence in lockdown 23 hours day. He also wrote to the prosecutor that he would kill again. Mary Wise pleaded to the court to sentence Duty to life in prison without the possibility of parole
, stating: "I don’t believe he ought to have a choice. I think he ought to sit in that cell and face those four walls and think about what he did for the rest of his natural-born life. And I hope and pray to God that you live to be 110 years old, because that’s how long I want you to think about what you did." Judge Taylor denied her request, calling Duty a "textbook case for the death penalty". Duty was initially scheduled to be executed on February 24, 2005.
. He cited the U.S. Supreme Court
decision of Ring v. Arizona
, arguing against the constitutionality of his "continuing threat" being used as an aggravating circumstance for his death sentence. However, the court noted that the issue was not raised by Duty during trial and upheld his judgement on April 23, 2004.
In 2010, a nationwide shortage of the lethal injection
drug, sodium thiopental
, led the Oklahoma Department of Corrections
to instead consider pentobarbital
, which is commonly used for animal euthanasia
. Oklahoma state law is not specific in prescribing the use of a fast-acting barbiturate, allowing flexibility for such a substitution. Duty and two other inmates on death row
filed a federal appeal that the new protocol would constitute cruel and unusual punishment
. In a hearing before the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals
, the professor of anesthesia from Harvard Medical School
testified for the defense that pentobarbital might not succeed in preventing "severe, excruciating pain". However, the professor of anesthesiology at the University of Massachusetts
countered in a deposition
for the state that 5 grams of pentobarbital would be sufficient to cause unconsciousness and death in minutes. Representatives from the Oklahoma Department of Corrections and the Death Penalty Information Center
both testified that no other state had used pentobarbital and that they believed Duty would be the first person to be executed by the drug. On December 14, 2010, the Circuit Judges Jerome Holmes
and Neil Gorsuch
joined Chief Judge Mary Beck Briscoe
in a unanimous decision upholding the use of the drug, citing that the state witness had provided had demonstrated "substantially more clinical experience with the use of pentobarbital". An appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court over the constitutionality of the state's execution protocol was also denied.
request, which included a double cheeseburger with mayonnaise, a foot-long hot dog with cheese, mustard and onions, a cherry limeade, and a banana shake. He then met with a prison chaplain, his attorneys, and his family. Duty addressed the family of the victim in his final statement
, "I hope one day you'll be able to forgive me, not for my sake, but for your own. Thank you, Lord Jesus. I'm ready to go home." The witnesses included the media, Duty's legal team, his brother and sister-in-law, but the Wise family did not attend.
Duty was strapped to a gurney with a patch over his right eye when the drugs were administered at 6:12 pm; a second intravenous line was prepared as a backup. The injection protocol included pentobarbital for sedation
, followed by vecuronium bromide to paralyze his breathing, and finally potassium chloride
to stop the heart. Duty repeated, "Thank you Lord. Thank you Lord." while he lost consciousness; he appeared to stop breathing 3 minutes later and was pronounced dead at 6:18 pm. Duty was the last prisoner to be executed in the United States in 2010. He was survived by his two sons, a daughter, and several grandchildren.
used Duty's case to argue that capital punishment had actually set a dangerous precedent of encouraging a murder, rather than deterring it. Though the group never questioned Duty's guilt, they cited his premeditation in killing Wise, followed by his guilty plea and request for the death penalty, as an example of exploiting the system to effectively turn the state into "an agent of suicide".
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
in Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
for first-degree murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
. According to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections
Oklahoma Department of Corrections
The Oklahoma Department of Corrections is an agency of the state of Oklahoma. DOC is responsible for the administration of the state prison system. It has its headquarters in Oklahoma City, in the former Mabel Bassett Correctional Center building.The Department of Corrections is governed by the...
, he is the first person in the United States
Capital punishment in the United States
Capital punishment in the United States, in practice, applies only for aggravated murder and more rarely for felony murder. Capital punishment was a penalty at common law, for many felonies, and was enforced in all of the American colonies prior to the Declaration of Independence...
to have been put to death with pentobarbital
Pentobarbital
Pentobarbital is a short-acting barbiturate that was first synthesized in 1928. Pentobarbital is available as both a free acid and a sodium salt, the former of which is only slightly soluble in water and ethanol....
. A nationwide shortage of another drug led the state to incorporate the substitution into their protocol for lethal injection
Lethal injection
Lethal injection is the practice of injecting a person with a fatal dose of drugs for the express purpose of causing the immediate death of the subject. The main application for this procedure is capital punishment, but the term may also be applied in a broad sense to euthanasia and suicide...
s. Duty's case gained media attention because pentobarbital had typically been used to euthanize animals
Animal euthanasia
Animal euthanasia is the act of putting to death painlessly or allowing to die, as by withholding extreme medical measures, an animal suffering from an incurable, especially a painful, disease or condition. Euthanasia methods are designed to cause minimal pain and distress...
.
Duty was sentenced to death for strangling a fellow inmate at Oklahoma State Penitentiary
Oklahoma State Penitentiary
The Oklahoma State Penitentiary is located in McAlester, Oklahoma, on . It is a prison of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. Opened in 1908 with 50 inmates in makeshift facilities, today the prison holds more than 1,200 male offenders, the vast majority of which are maximum-security inmates...
in December 2001. At the time, Duty had been serving a life sentence
Life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...
for a 1978 conviction of rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
, robbery
Robbery
Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take something of value by force or threat of force or by putting the victim in fear. At common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear....
and shooting with intent to kill. He did not contest the murder charge and stated that he would kill again if he was not executed.
Duty later filed appeals that the change to the method of execution could be inhumane, but was denied. Though his case had gone all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
, opponents of capital punishment
Opposition to capital punishment in the United States
Opposition to capital punishment in the United States existed as early as the colonial period. Opposition to the death penalty peaked in 1966 , rising to 47% opposition, higher than those who supported it , the rest had 'no opinion'...
claimed that Duty had manipulated the system to be executed as a method of escape from life imprisonment. He was put to death at the same penitentiary where he had committed the murder nearly nine years earlier.
Background
John David Duty was born on April 25, 1952, to Charles Houston Duty and Mildred Duty Hall. Duty stated that he had been raised in a broken home, his mother having remarried twice. His family included two brothers, a sister, a half-brother, and a half-sister. For some time, Duty went by the name of John David Hall; there had been some confusion over the identity of his biological father as his mother had married O.H. Hall at Atoka, OklahomaAtoka, Oklahoma
Atoka is a city in Atoka County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 3,052 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Atoka County.-Geography:Atoka is located at ....
in 1950, but his birth certificate listed Duty as his surname. According to Duty, he lost an eye due to an accident in the third grade and suffered a head injury from a collapsed brick wall; the latter incident led him to be hospitalized for scarlet fever
Scarlet fever
Scarlet fever is a disease caused by exotoxin released by Streptococcus pyogenes. Once a major cause of death, it is now effectively treated with antibiotics...
. Duty's mother passed away to illness in Altus, Oklahoma
Altus, Oklahoma
Altus is a city in Jackson County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 19,813 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Jackson County....
at the age of 46 on August 24, 1973.
Duty worked as a manager at Central Manufacturing in Vernon, Texas
Vernon, Texas
Vernon is a city in Wilbarger County, Texas, United States. As of the 2000 census, the population was 11,660; it was 11,077 in the 2005 census estimate. Vernon is the county seat of Wilbarger County....
before being employed at Sonic Drive-In
Sonic Drive-In
Sonic Drive-In is an American drive-in fast-food restaurant chain based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, complete with carhops who sometimes wear rollerskates. As of August 31, 2010, there were 3,500 restaurants in 43 U.S. states. Sonic serves approximately 3 million customers daily.-1950s:Following...
and PepsiCo
PepsiCo
PepsiCo Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Purchase, New York, United States, with interests in the manufacturing, marketing and distribution of grain-based snack foods, beverages, and other products. PepsiCo was formed in 1965 with the merger of the Pepsi-Cola Company...
in Wichita Falls, Texas
Wichita Falls, Texas
Wichita Falls is a city in and the county seat of Wichita County, Texas, United States, United States. Wichita Falls is the principal city of the Wichita Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Archer, Clay and Wichita counties. According to the U.S. Census estimate of 2010,...
, which lies south of the border with Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
. He and his wife Pam had two sons and a daughter.
Kidnapping case
On February 16, 1978, Duty and Anthony Trombitas, whom he had met about four to five days earlier, robbed the Jiffy Mart convenience store on Falcon Road in Altus, north of the border with Texas. During the robbery, which netted some beer and money, ranging in various accounts from $7.66 to $18, the two men abducted store clerk Linda Hall (no relation). After driving her to a barn in Tillman CountyTillman County, Oklahoma
Tillman County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. As of 2000, the population was 9,287. The county seat is Frederick. .-Geography:According to the U.S...
, Duty raped Hall and shot her in the back of the head three times with a .22 caliber pistol. Trombitas then hit her with a stick, which Duty identified as a broom handle. Though left for dead, Hall was able to walk a mile (1.6 km) to a house for help and recovered at Tillman County Memorial Hospital. The two men drove off to Frederick
Frederick, Oklahoma
Frederick is a city in Tillman County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 3,940 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Tillman County. This is an agriculture based community primarily with wheat, cotton, and cattle....
, then Electra
Electra, Texas
Electra is a city in Wichita County, Texas, United States. It is part of the Wichita Falls, Texas Metropolitan Statistical Area. The United States Census Bureau counted Electra's population as 3,168 at the 2000 census and estimated it to be 2,891 as of 2006...
, and proceeded to Fort Worth
Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth is the 16th-largest city in the United States of America and the fifth-largest city in the state of Texas. Located in North Central Texas, just southeast of the Texas Panhandle, the city is a cultural gateway into the American West and covers nearly in Tarrant, Parker, Denton, and...
. Upon hearing a radio report about her on the next day, Duty said, "I was surprised that she was still alive." Duty returned to Altus the following month, presuming that law enforcement officers were going to catch up with him anyway. He was arrested on the street after calling the police and hanging up from a payphone
Payphone
A payphone or pay phone is a public telephone, often located in a phone booth or a privacy hood, with pre-payment by inserting money , a credit or debit card, or a telephone card....
at another Jiffy Mart near the downtown square.
Jackson County Courthouse (Altus, Oklahoma)
Jackson County Courthouse is a building in Altus, Oklahoma that was built in 1910. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984....
before Judge Weldon Ferris while represented by Clyde Amyx and John Wampler. Duty stated that he had no criminal record besides three traffic violations, and that he felt that he could be rehabilitated in prison. He pleaded guilty on July 18 to charges of rape and shooting with intent to kill in Tillman County and was also convicted of robbery in neighboring Jackson County
Jackson County, Oklahoma
Jackson County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. As of 2000, the population was 28,439. Its county seat is Altus.-Geography:According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and is water....
. Under cross-examination by prosecutor Mike Evans, Duty stated that he had been depressed and had been drinking for two days before the crime, which he admitted was his idea. Judge Ferris sentenced Duty to serve concurrent life terms
Life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...
for the charges of robbery, rape and shooting with intent to kill, and 20 years for kidnapping. Trombitas was sentenced to 25 years for armed robbery and 20 years for kidnapping.
Hostage incident
At 11:30 am on August 8, 1979, Duty grabbed a pair of scissors and held eight people hostage in the medical unit of Oklahoma State PenitentiaryOklahoma State Penitentiary
The Oklahoma State Penitentiary is located in McAlester, Oklahoma, on . It is a prison of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. Opened in 1908 with 50 inmates in makeshift facilities, today the prison holds more than 1,200 male offenders, the vast majority of which are maximum-security inmates...
in McAlester
McAlester, Oklahoma
McAlester is a city in Pittsburg County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 17,783 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Pittsburg County. It is currently the largest city in the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, followed by Durant....
, Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
. Officials did not know what prompted Duty, who had entered the unit for treatment, to take hostages as he did not make any demands. Duty soon released six of the hostages unharmed, and let nurse Virginia Nelson go about two hours later. The last remaining hostage, psychologist Jim Fenwick, took Duty into his office and conducted negotiations until Duty surrendered at 4:02 pm on the same day.
Prison murder
On December 13, 2001, officials at the penitentiary placed 22-year-old Curtis J. Wise Jr. in the same cell with Duty; Wise had been convicted in October 1999 of burglary, larceny, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.On December 19, Duty offered Wise some cigarettes in exchange for allowing himself to be tied up to make the guards think that he had been taken hostage, with the goal of having Duty transferred into administrative security. The prosecutor's report stated that after tying Wise's hands and feet behind his back, Duty strangled him to death with a shoelace. Duty then wrote a letter to Wise's mother Mary, in which he stated: "Well by the time you get this letter you will already know that your son is dead. I know now because I just killed him an hour ago. Gee you'd think I'd be feeling some remorse but I'm not." The letter was intercepted at the prison.
Murder trial
At his arraignment at the District Court of Pittsburg CountyPittsburg County, Oklahoma
Pittsburg County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. As of 2000, the population was 43,953. Its county seat is McAlester.-Geography:According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 3,569 km²...
on June 4, 2002, Duty asked Judge Steven Taylor to enter a guilty plea to the murder and requested the death penalty, against the advice of his defense counsel. On October 28 of that year, Duty was deemed competent to enter the plea after court-ordered evaluations by the Carl Albert Community Mental Health Center and Eastern Oklahoma State Hospital. While testifying on his own behalf, Duty declined to present any mitigating evidence and said that he preferred death over spending a life sentence in lockdown 23 hours day. He also wrote to the prosecutor that he would kill again. Mary Wise pleaded to the court to sentence Duty to life in prison without the possibility of parole
Parole
Parole may have different meanings depending on the field and judiciary system. All of the meanings originated from the French parole . Following its use in late-resurrected Anglo-French chivalric practice, the term became associated with the release of prisoners based on prisoners giving their...
, stating: "I don’t believe he ought to have a choice. I think he ought to sit in that cell and face those four walls and think about what he did for the rest of his natural-born life. And I hope and pray to God that you live to be 110 years old, because that’s how long I want you to think about what you did." Judge Taylor denied her request, calling Duty a "textbook case for the death penalty". Duty was initially scheduled to be executed on February 24, 2005.
Appeals
In 2004, Duty filed an appeal with the Oklahoma Court of Criminal AppealsOklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals is one of the two highest judicial bodies in the U.S. state of Oklahoma and is part of the Oklahoma Court System, the judicial branch of the Oklahoma state government....
. He cited the U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
decision of Ring v. Arizona
Ring v. Arizona
Ring v. Arizona, , is a case in which the United States Supreme Court applied the rule of Apprendi v. New Jersey, , to capital sentencing schemes, holding that the Sixth Amendment requires a jury to find the aggravating factors necessary for imposing the death penalty. Ring overruled a portion of...
, arguing against the constitutionality of his "continuing threat" being used as an aggravating circumstance for his death sentence. However, the court noted that the issue was not raised by Duty during trial and upheld his judgement on April 23, 2004.
Lethal injection
Lethal injection is the practice of injecting a person with a fatal dose of drugs for the express purpose of causing the immediate death of the subject. The main application for this procedure is capital punishment, but the term may also be applied in a broad sense to euthanasia and suicide...
drug, sodium thiopental
Sodium thiopental
Sodium thiopental, better known as Sodium Pentothal , thiopental, thiopentone sodium, or Trapanal , is a rapid-onset short-acting barbiturate general anaesthetic...
, led the Oklahoma Department of Corrections
Oklahoma Department of Corrections
The Oklahoma Department of Corrections is an agency of the state of Oklahoma. DOC is responsible for the administration of the state prison system. It has its headquarters in Oklahoma City, in the former Mabel Bassett Correctional Center building.The Department of Corrections is governed by the...
to instead consider pentobarbital
Pentobarbital
Pentobarbital is a short-acting barbiturate that was first synthesized in 1928. Pentobarbital is available as both a free acid and a sodium salt, the former of which is only slightly soluble in water and ethanol....
, which is commonly used for animal euthanasia
Animal euthanasia
Animal euthanasia is the act of putting to death painlessly or allowing to die, as by withholding extreme medical measures, an animal suffering from an incurable, especially a painful, disease or condition. Euthanasia methods are designed to cause minimal pain and distress...
. Oklahoma state law is not specific in prescribing the use of a fast-acting barbiturate, allowing flexibility for such a substitution. Duty and two other inmates on death row
Death row
Death row signifies the place, often a section of a prison, that houses individuals awaiting execution. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution , even in places where no special facility or separate unit for condemned inmates exists.After individuals are found...
filed a federal appeal that the new protocol would constitute cruel and unusual punishment
Cruel and unusual punishment
Cruel and unusual punishment is a phrase describing criminal punishment which is considered unacceptable due to the suffering or humiliation it inflicts on the condemned person...
. In a hearing before the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals
United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:* District of Colorado* District of Kansas...
, the professor of anesthesia from Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School is the graduate medical school of Harvard University. It is located in the Longwood Medical Area of the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts....
testified for the defense that pentobarbital might not succeed in preventing "severe, excruciating pain". However, the professor of anesthesiology at the University of Massachusetts
University of Massachusetts
This article relates to the statewide university system. For the flagship campus often referred to as "UMass", see University of Massachusetts Amherst...
countered in a deposition
Deposition (law)
In the law of the United States, a deposition is the out-of-court oral testimony of a witness that is reduced to writing for later use in court or for discovery purposes. It is commonly used in litigation in the United States and Canada and is almost always conducted outside of court by the...
for the state that 5 grams of pentobarbital would be sufficient to cause unconsciousness and death in minutes. Representatives from the Oklahoma Department of Corrections and the Death Penalty Information Center
Death Penalty Information Center
The Death Penalty Information Center is a non-profit organization that focuses on disseminating studies and reports related to the death penalty by itself and others to the news media and general public...
both testified that no other state had used pentobarbital and that they believed Duty would be the first person to be executed by the drug. On December 14, 2010, the Circuit Judges Jerome Holmes
Jerome Holmes
Jerome A. Holmes is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He is the first African American to serve on the Tenth Circuit.- Background :...
and Neil Gorsuch
Neil Gorsuch
Neil McGill Gorsuch is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He is the son of Anne Burford, the first female head of the United States Environmental Protection Agency....
joined Chief Judge Mary Beck Briscoe
Mary Beck Briscoe
Mary Beck Briscoe is the Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.- Early life and education :Briscoe was born in Council Grove, Kansas, and grew up on a farm near that community. She graduated from Dwight Rural High School in 1965 as her small class's valedictorian,...
in a unanimous decision upholding the use of the drug, citing that the state witness had provided had demonstrated "substantially more clinical experience with the use of pentobarbital". An appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court over the constitutionality of the state's execution protocol was also denied.
Execution
Duty's execution was carried out on December 16, 2010, at Oklahoma State Penitentiary. At noon, Duty was granted his last mealLast meal
The last meal is a customary part of a condemned prisoner's last day. Often, the day of, or before, the appointed time of execution, the prisoner receives a last meal, as well as religious rites, if they desire. In the United States, inmates generally may not ask for an alcoholic drink...
request, which included a double cheeseburger with mayonnaise, a foot-long hot dog with cheese, mustard and onions, a cherry limeade, and a banana shake. He then met with a prison chaplain, his attorneys, and his family. Duty addressed the family of the victim in his final statement
Final statement
When a criminal is convicted and sentenced to capital punishment, the criminal can make a final statement, or his "last words", before being executed. Much of the time, the last word is an apology to family, friends, or God. Sometimes though, a final statement includes words of hatred, disgust, or...
, "I hope one day you'll be able to forgive me, not for my sake, but for your own. Thank you, Lord Jesus. I'm ready to go home." The witnesses included the media, Duty's legal team, his brother and sister-in-law, but the Wise family did not attend.
Duty was strapped to a gurney with a patch over his right eye when the drugs were administered at 6:12 pm; a second intravenous line was prepared as a backup. The injection protocol included pentobarbital for sedation
Sedative
A sedative or tranquilizer is a substance that induces sedation by reducing irritability or excitement....
, followed by vecuronium bromide to paralyze his breathing, and finally potassium chloride
Potassium chloride
The chemical compound potassium chloride is a metal halide salt composed of potassium and chlorine. In its pure state, it is odorless and has a white or colorless vitreous crystal appearance, with a crystal structure that cleaves easily in three directions. Potassium chloride crystals are...
to stop the heart. Duty repeated, "Thank you Lord. Thank you Lord." while he lost consciousness; he appeared to stop breathing 3 minutes later and was pronounced dead at 6:18 pm. Duty was the last prisoner to be executed in the United States in 2010. He was survived by his two sons, a daughter, and several grandchildren.
Death penalty debate
The National Coalition to Abolish the Death PenaltyNational Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty is a large organization dedicated to the abolition of the death penalty in the United States...
used Duty's case to argue that capital punishment had actually set a dangerous precedent of encouraging a murder, rather than deterring it. Though the group never questioned Duty's guilt, they cited his premeditation in killing Wise, followed by his guilty plea and request for the death penalty, as an example of exploiting the system to effectively turn the state into "an agent of suicide".
See also
- Albert Greenwood BrownAlbert Greenwood BrownAlbert Greenwood Brown, Jr. is an American convicted of sexual molestation of a minor, two counts of rape, and the murder of an adolescent in Riverside, California. He was scheduled to die by lethal injection at 9 p.m. on September 30, 2010 in California's first use of capital punishment...
, a capital case in California affected by the shortage of sodium thiopental. - Capital punishment in Oklahoma
- Capital punishment in the United StatesCapital punishment in the United StatesCapital punishment in the United States, in practice, applies only for aggravated murder and more rarely for felony murder. Capital punishment was a penalty at common law, for many felonies, and was enforced in all of the American colonies prior to the Declaration of Independence...
- John DeeringJohn DeeringJohn W. Deering was the subject of an experiment to observe what would happen to the human heart during death by gunshot. Deering, an American facing execution by the state of Utah for the May 1938 murder of Oliver R. Meredith Jr., volunteered to have himself hooked up to an electrocardiogram...
, a convict in Utah who pursued the death penalty and was executed around three months after his arrest.
External links
- John David Duty at the Clark CountyClark County, IndianaClark County is a county located in the U.S. state of Indiana, located directly across the Ohio River from Louisville, Kentucky. At the 2010 Census, the population was 110,232. The county seat is Jeffersonville. Clarksville is also a major city in the county...
Prosecuting Attorney's Office - John David Duty v. Randall G. Workman, warden – U.S. 10th Circuit Court of AppealsUnited States Court of Appeals for the Tenth CircuitThe United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:* District of Colorado* District of Kansas...
(February 12, 2010) - Pavatt, Matthews, and Duty v. Jones, Workman, and Doe – U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals (December 14, 2010)