McALESTER, Okla. (AP) — Oklahoma prison officials have spent more than $106,000 renovating the death chamber inside the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.
The Department of Corrections is allowing members of the media inside the prison's maximum-security H-unit on Thursday to see the new room.
Prison officials spent about $71,000 to reconstruct the death chamber and adjacent viewing rooms to give executioners more room. They also spent about $34,000 on new medical equipment, including an ultrasound machine to help locate veins on the condemned. The DOC also has developed new protocols for carrying out executions since a lethal injection went awry in the spring.
The director of the state prison system, Robert Patton, has said his agency will be prepared to carry out the next scheduled execution on November 13th.