Fatal errors a worry as lethal injections resume

updated 4:21 a.m. ET May 27, 2008

OKLAHOMA CITY - Defense attorneys are worried that an innocent man could be executed now that the U.S. death-row machine is gearing up again following a Supreme Court ruling that upheld the constitutionality of lethal injection after an unofficial seven-month moratorium.

They point to past death sentences of men who were later exonerated, blaming ineffective lawyers, overzealous prosecutors and shoddy evidence.

"The answer is yes, it could happen," said James Rowan, who has defended more than 40 capital cases.

Since 1973, 129 people have walked off death row in 26 states after evidence proved they were wrongfully convicted, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Florida leads all states with 22 exonerations, followed by 18 in Illinois. Oklahoma is one of five states that have each freed eight inmates from death row. One of the Oklahoma men, Ron Williamson, spent nine years on death row and came within five days of execution before he was set free by DNA evidence. The case formed the basis of John Grisham's best-selling "The Innocent Man."

Oklahoma's executioners have administered lethal injections to 86 people since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, trailing only Texas with 405 and Virginia with 98.

Court ruling OKs injections
The Supreme Court began considering the constitutionality of lethal injection in September after a Kentucky man sued, arguing the procedure was cruel and unusal punishment.

Critics of the practice say that if the initial anesthetic in the lethal three-drug does not take hold, the other two drugs can cause excruciating pain. One of those drugs, a paralytic, would render the prisoner unable to express his discomfort.

The 35 states that use lethal injections held off until the court upheld the practice in April. The states of Mississippi and Georgia have executed death row inmates since the ruling.

Nobody has ever been able to produce irrefutable proof that any innocent man was executed in recent U.S. history, but Oklahoma's execution of Malcolm Rent Johnson has troubled many death penalty opponents. He went to his execution proclaiming his innocence.

A star prosecution witness against Johnson, convicted of the 1981 rape and strangulation of an elderly woman, was police chemist Joyce Gilchrist, who was later fired amid allegations of shoddy forensic work and misleading testimony.

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