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Clayton Lockett, left, and Charles Warner. ASSOCIATED PRESS

The first 'double execution' in the US for 14 years will be carried out on Tuesday

The move comes as a court ruled that Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner are not entitled to know the source of the drugs that will be used to kill them.

OKLAHOMA PLANS TO hold its first double execution in nearly 80 years, state Governor Mary Fallin said today.

The move comes a day after the state Supreme Court removed one of the final obstacles, ruling late on Wednesday that Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner are not entitled to know the source of the drugs that will be used to kill them. The inmates had sought that information through a civil lawsuit.

“The defendants had their day in court. The court has made a decision,” Gov. Mary Fallin said in a statement. “Two men that do not contest their guilt in heinous murders will now face justice, and the families and friends of their victims will now have closure.”

The Oklahoma Supreme Court also dissolved a stay of execution it had issued earlier in the week in a sharply divided and much criticized 5-4 decision that put the state’s two highest courts at odds.

Because the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has exclusive jurisdiction over criminal matters, Fallin and others accused the state’s high court of initially overstepping its civil-only bounds — to the point that some legislators called for impeaching the five justices who had voted to delay the executions.

“This ruling shows that our legal system works,” Fallin said of the high court’s latest decision.

Defense attorney Seth Day said in a statement that without knowing the source of the drugs, the public has no way of knowing whether the execution will be carried out in a “constitutional and humane manner.”

“It’s not even known whether the lethal injection drugs to be used were obtained legally, and nothing is known about their source, purity, or efficacy, among other questions,” he said. “Oklahoma’s extreme secrecy surrounding lethal injection undermines our courts and democracy.”

The Oklahoma Department of Corrections is working on specifics and logistics of how Tuesday’s executions will be carried out, Fallin said.

It’s rare for multiple executions to happen in one day, with only Arkansas, Illinois, South Carolina and Texas doing so since the death penalty was reinstated in the U.S. in 1976, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center.

“I think it’s actually becoming less common because states have deliberately spaced things out,” said Richard Dieter, the center’s executive director. “It takes a toll on a prison and its personnel.”

The most recent occurrence of two inmates being executed on the same day was 9 August 2000, in Texas. The last time Oklahoma did it was 11 June 1937, when convicted murderers Charlie Sands and Leon Siler were electrocuted.

Arkansas is the only state that has executed three inmates on the same day since 1976, once in 1994 and again in 1997. In both instances, all three executions were carried out in less than three hours, according to the Arkansas Department of Corrections.

Oklahoma Department of Corrections spokesman Jerry Massie said the agency intends to have a plan for the executions ready by Friday and is preparing for “any eventuality.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time there has been last-minute changes,” Massie said.

The two men, who have exhausted all of their appeals, were not challenging their conviction or sentence in their lawsuit. Attorneys for the two men did not return telephone messages left on Thursday seeking information about any further appeals that could be filed.

Lockett, 38, was convicted of shooting 19-year-old Stephanie Nieman with a sawn-off shotgun and watching as two accomplices buried her alive in 1999. Warner, 46, was found guilty of raping and killing his room mate’s 11-month-old child in 1997.

Read: US executes man who killed a farming couple in 1993 >

Read: ‘Killing sprees’: Number of people executed worldwide spiked in 2013 >

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185 Comments
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    Mute That's all folk's
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    Dec 5th 2013, 11:21 PM

    Mandela humbles us all with his dignity and courage. What a man.

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    Mute Rob Cunningham
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    Dec 5th 2013, 11:25 PM

    Well said! RIP Nelson Mandela

    54
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    Mute William Ruane
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    Dec 6th 2013, 2:06 PM

    I can no longer stand Obama and his predictable mush.

    RIP Nelson Mandela

    9
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    Mute gerard kennelly
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    Dec 5th 2013, 11:17 PM

    both charismatic

    both presidents

    both black

    but only one of them murdered people with drones

    64
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    Mute Kevin O'Connor
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    Dec 5th 2013, 11:25 PM

    The other used car bombs. RIP Nelson Mandela.

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    Mute Spud Jones
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    Dec 5th 2013, 11:27 PM

    I don’t know, I think of Obama as more Hispanic

    24
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    Mute Ryan Mc Crory
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    Dec 6th 2013, 1:41 AM

    I’m taking Obamas comments with a pinch of salt. Speaking with two tongues it seems. Obama gave a 3.1bn military grant to Israel in 2013, aiding an apartheid regime in Israel & the oppression of Palestinian people, a people Mandela particularly thought highly off for their resistance & dedication.

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    Mute Tim Stephen Hendy
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    Dec 6th 2013, 3:02 AM

    idiot. what “apartheid”?
    Nelson didn’t take sides in the conflict.

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    Mute Ryan Mc Crory
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    Dec 6th 2013, 3:54 AM

    Firstly, Mandela was a strong supporter of Palestinian freedom. A famous quote from Nelson himself – “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

    Secondly, your ignorance of the Palestinian & Arab blight in Israel & Palestine is shocking. Have a read of this article. You could learn a thing or two.
    http://m.aljazeera.com/story/20121027145235386715

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    Mute Tim Stephen Hendy
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    Dec 6th 2013, 4:49 AM

    well the Arabs may have some issues but describing them as a “blight in Israel & Palestine” is going a bit far. It could be taken as a bit racist, and it IS their traditional homeland, at least part of it.

    It does also show that a short quote out of context can mean whatever you want it to mean :)

    al jazeera, hey? no axe to grind on their part, I’m sure.

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    Mute Ryan Mc Crory
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    Dec 6th 2013, 5:17 AM

    Meant the blight of the Arab & Palestinian people, it’s late you know lol. Its pretty hard to take Mandelas quote out of context, very blunt & straight to the point.

    Read the article. Regardless of the source, it’s factual based, as one would say, you can’t twist facts.

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    Mute Tim Stephen Hendy
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    Dec 6th 2013, 5:22 AM

    I assumed you meant plight!
    but, we all want the freedom of the Palestinian people, it’s just that that doesn’t mean one specific thing, like, say, the destruction of Israel to create one state, which only some people want. It’s hard to argue Mandela wanted that. Tutu might have leaned in that direction but Nelson didn’t, as far as I’m aware anyway.

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    Mute Ronan Martin
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    Dec 6th 2013, 9:01 AM

    Well said Tim Stephen Hendy

    “The term Apartheid refers to the segregation of groups on the basis of ethnicity or race, and the denial of basic civil rights to the segregated group. There is no such segregation in Israel. Arabs are granted full civil rights under Israeli law, which forbids discrimination on the basis of race, creed, or sex. Arabs take part fully in Israeli society and government. Arab citizens of Israel vote in national elections, have representatives in the Israeli Parliament, sit on the Israeli courts and on the Israeli Supreme Court benches, and serve as tenured professors teaching in Israeli colleges and universities. The Arab citizens of Israel have more rights, and enjoy more freedom, education, and economic opportunity than the Arabs of any Arab state.” I copied and pasted that from another site but it is still true

    6
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    Mute Kevin Mc Garry
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    Dec 6th 2013, 9:12 AM

    That’s crap. You’ve clearly never seen Jew only buses or Jew only roads in Israel. You’ve never seen videos of how palestinian women and children are treated at military checkpoints. Did you know palestinian children are held captive by the IDF for days at a time and their parents denied access to them. Or how about having to walk to school through raw sewage.

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    Mute Ronan Martin
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    Dec 6th 2013, 9:53 AM

    Its not crap it’s the truth, there are no Jew only buses or Jew only roads in Israel you plonker, I don’t know were you’re this drivel from probably the pallywood web sites!

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    Mute Kevin Mc Garry
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    Dec 6th 2013, 12:29 PM

    It is crap. Here’s a link for my so called “drivel”. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/9906113/Israel-launches-Palestinian-only-buses-amid-accusations-of-racial-segregation.html the telegraph non pallywood enough for you.

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    Mute Ronan Martin
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    Dec 6th 2013, 1:49 PM
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    Mute Kevin Mc Garry
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    Dec 6th 2013, 2:24 PM

    Funny how you accused me of talking drivel from pallywood sites. Yet your link is from a paper that has section devoted entirely to “anti israel bias”. Here’s another one for you. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4353235,00.html
    You clearly can’t articulate an argument without name calling. So touch on pal I’m done with you.

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    Mute Ronan Martin
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    Dec 6th 2013, 4:36 PM

    Ok pal good luck

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    Mute Enda Kenny
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    Dec 27th 2015, 8:55 PM

    @ Ryan Mc Crory

    if mandela was such a hero.. such a gentle soul

    then how and why was he friends with Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness?

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    Mute Daryn O'Meara
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    Dec 5th 2013, 11:36 PM

    Nelson Mandela. 26 years imprisoned. Never once re-offended. Say what you like about the prison system, it seems to work!

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    Mute Lar Moran
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    Dec 6th 2013, 12:59 AM

    Thoughtless fool…..

    RIP Mandella

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    Mute Brian Ó Dálaigh
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    Dec 6th 2013, 12:08 AM

    We’re all made of stars. And today, hopefully, a star that has been extinguished will lighten the lives of so many others to come. Rest in peace, Madiba.

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    Mute Orix
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    Dec 6th 2013, 12:52 AM

    I went to Robinn island and stood outside his cell
    And I remembered that when he was freed that officers the kept him in his cell were commissioned to look after him president

    In the morning he was a freedom fighter that day he left his cell as president of SA

    rus in vrede

    It’s an historic day for a man who gave so much of his life to his people
    Rest in peace

    29
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    Mute RoBertie
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    Dec 6th 2013, 1:29 AM

    Invictus
    Out of the night that covers me,
    Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
    I thank whatever gods may be
    For my unconquerable soul.

    In the fell clutch of circumstance
    I have not winced nor cried aloud.
    Under the bludgeonings of chance
    My head is bloody, but unbowed.

    Beyond this place of wrath and tears
    Looms but the Horror of the shade,
    And yet the menace of the years
    Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

    It matters not how strait the gate,
    How charged with punishments the scroll.
    I am the master of my fate:
    I am the captain of my soul.

    RIP Mandela

    27
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    Mute Amy Lane Adams
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    Feb 10th 2014, 8:29 AM

    we’ve had seperate and special news bulletins
    by the state broadcaster
    to tell us what michelle obama and her daughters had for lunch in dublin
    but very little questioning of the fact
    that she was having lunch with mr tax exile himself

    she’s glad to be home

    home.. a country she has been in less than a week

    in his speech Obama said
    ”those who choose a path of peace i promise you
    that the united states of america will support you every step of the way.
    we will be the wind at your back”

    is he going for the hypocrite of the century award ?

    we have to call things by their right names..
    and the reality is..
    by any serious examination.. this man is a war criminal

    Clare Daly
    june 26 … 2013

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    Mute Enda Cusack
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    Dec 5th 2013, 11:35 PM

    May his light continue to shine. RIP

    26
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    Mute Amy Lane Adams
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    Feb 10th 2014, 7:18 AM

    Enda Cusack

    paid tribute to by war criminal Obama

    his funeral attended by paedo protecting Gerry adams

    rest in peace indeed !!!!

    1
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    Mute Sian O Sullivan
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    Dec 6th 2013, 12:18 AM

    He helped bring his country from dark to light . His passing is truly this worlds lost . A great man may he RIP

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    Mute Tim Stephen Hendy
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    Dec 6th 2013, 3:03 AM

    If Mandela is Obama’s personal political hero, why isn’t he anything like him?

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    Mute GOLDEN ARMS
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    Dec 6th 2013, 10:33 AM

    He is the complete opposite of Mandela

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    Mute gerard kennelly
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    Dec 16th 2013, 6:26 AM

    Obama is white ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

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    Mute Ricki Brennan
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    Dec 5th 2013, 11:20 PM

    Nelson Mandella died???

    17
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    Mute Yusuf Jamal
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    Dec 6th 2013, 8:56 AM

    Obama is the exact opposite of Mandela. Obama is a real terrorist unlike Mandela.

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    Mute Amy Lane Adams
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    Feb 10th 2014, 7:16 AM

    @ Yusaf Jamal

    hear hear

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    Mute Robert Zombies
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    Dec 5th 2013, 11:52 PM

    He belongs to a hollow grave now.

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    Mute Bruno Bellone
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    Dec 6th 2013, 3:31 PM

    These guys haven’t much in common apart from both being the first black Presidents of their respective Countries. Mandela was a brilliant statesman, full of humility, and will inspire for generations. Obama, on the other hand, is out of his depth, has a huge ego, and he has flattered to deceive.

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