conviction_status death_date death_place conviction birth_place alias children image_size conviction_penalty name image_caption parents birth_date spouse article_title citizenship image_name
executed penitentiary on december 16 , 2010 at oklahoma state 16 december 2010 mcalester , oklahoma , usa kidnapping to kill & ndash ; july 18 , 1978 first-degree , murder & ndash ; october 28 , 2002 rape , robbery , shooting with intent oklahoma , usa john david hall 2 sons , 1 daughter 200px life imprisonment execution by lethal injection john david duty photo by the oklahoma department of corrections charles houston duty mildred duty hall 25 april 1952 pam duty john david duty
 american john david duty mugshot.jpg
john david duty

john david duty -lrb- april 25 , 1952 -- december 16 , 2010 -rrb- 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 sodium thiopental led the state to incorporate the substitution into their protocol for lethal injections .
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 vowed 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 .
