Death Row killer executed after begging for firing squad instead of lethal injection

dailystar.co.uk:

brutal slaughter of four people in Oklahoma has been executed. Gilbert Postelle was given a lethal injection today (February 17) in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary's H Unit.He’s the second convict to have been executed in Oklahoma in 2022.Postelle’s lawyers had tried to argue that the execution should be called off because the lethal injection method used to end lives on Death Row carries a "substantial risk of severe pain and suffering" and was unconstitutional, but Judge Stephen Friot ruled that the execution should go ahead.His decision means that a further two dozen prisoners waiting on Death Row could soon now be executed.Postelle was one of two condemned men who had begged to be executed by firing squad rather than by the controversial lethal injection method."While it may be gruesome to look at, we all agree it will be quicker," Jim Stronski, an attorney acting for the men, told Judge Friot.According to an Oklahoma Police report, Postelle was one of four men who shot James Alderson, 57, Terry Smith, 56, Donnie Swindle, 49, and Amy Wright, 26, at a southeast Oklahoma City home in 2005 because he blamed them for a motorcycle accident that had left his father with life-changing injuries.The Oklahoman reported that Postelle had ordered Alderson, Smith, Swindle, and Wright to “get on their knees” before shooting a total of 30 rounds into them with an AK-47 style assault rifle.He was handed two death sentences for the killings of Alderson and Wright after the prosecution showed that he had chased them as they tried to flee and then shot them from behind.“In her final moments, Amy Wright was screaming and clawing the ground to escape from Gilbert Postelle,” Assistant Attorney General Julie Pittman told the Clemency.