Co-Chairs of Oklahoma Commission Praise Steps Towards Death-Penalty Reform

Two of the co-chairs of the bipar­ti­san Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission have praised orga­ni­za­tions in the state for tak­ing ​“essen­tial steps” towards imple­ment­ing some of the Commission’s rec­om­men­da­tions to reform Oklahoma’s death-penal­ty sys­tem. In an arti­cle pub­lished December 7 in the Tulsa World, for­mer Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry (pic­tured, left) and Andy Lester (pic­tured, right), a promi­nent Oklahoma lit­i­ga­tor, spot­light­ed actions by the Oklahoma Bar Association (OBA) and the state District Attorneys Council that they say ​“com­mit to reforms” rec­om­mend­ed by the Commission that would improve the qual­i­ty of death-penal­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tion and help reduce the risk of wrong­ful con­vic­tions. The Commission spent more than a year ​“ana­lyz­ing, debat­ing and hear­ing from law enforce­ment, pros­e­cu­tors, defense attor­neys, judges, fam­i­lies of mur­der vic­tims, those wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and oth­ers” before pub­lish­ing a near­ly 300-page report in April 2017 that includ­ed 45 rec­om­men­da­tions for reform­ing Oklahoma’s death penal­ty. The report empha­sized that one of the ​“most sig­nif­i­cant fac­tors that influ­ence out­comes in cap­i­tal cas­es is the qual­i­ty of a defendant’s attor­ney,” and called for the adop­tion of per­for­mance stan­dards for death-penal­ty defense coun­sel. After meet­ing with the Commission, the state bar asso­ci­a­tion cre­at­ed a task force that draft­ed min­i­mum stan­dards of cap­i­tal-defense prac­tice, which have since been approved by the OBA House of Delegates. The OBA’s Rules of Professional Conduct Committee is now draft­ing rules for cap­i­tal defense lawyers for con­sid­er­a­tion by the Oklahoma Supreme Court. Henry and Lester write that they ​“are so pleased” that the OBA’s actions have shown that it ​“under­stands the impor­tance of a qual­i­fied lawyer in death penal­ty cas­es.” The co-chairs also praised the District Attorneys Council for ​“undertak[ing] rec­om­men­da­tions from the com­mis­sion.” These includ­ed con­duct­ing a train­ing over the sum­mer on com­mon caus­es of wrong­ful con­vic­tions and ​“con­sid­er­ing the for­ma­tion of a best prac­tices com­mit­tee.” Henry and Lester rec­og­nize that the Committee’s rec­om­men­da­tions will not all be imple­ment­ed overnight, but say they ​“are encour­aged that two major play­ers in Oklahoma’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem are work­ing to improve stan­dards and train­ing for defense lawyers and pros­e­cu­tors. Without effec­tive lawyers on both sides,” they say, ​“we can­not guar­an­tee that our sys­tem is just and fair.”

(B. Henry & A. Lester, Gov. Brad Henry and Andy Lester: OBA and DAC lead the way on death penal­ty reforms, Tulsa World, December 7, 2017.) See Oklahoma and Representation.