Former Chair of Oklahoma Board of Pardons and Parole Speaks Out Against the Death Penalty as Pending Moratorium Bills Gain Support in Legislature

Adam Luck (pic­tured), the for­mer Chairman of Oklahoma’s Board of Pardons and Parole and for­mer mem­ber of the Oklahoma Board of Corrections, is now speak­ing out against the death penal­ty in Oklahoma. Explaining his change of heart, Mr. Luck cites to his first-hand expe­ri­ence with flaws in Oklahoma’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem, includ­ing botched exe­cu­tions, and his deep Christian faith. ​“Having the unique expe­ri­ence of vot­ing on the life of anoth­er human being forced me to con­sid­er the impli­ca­tions of my faith in ways I nev­er had before,” Mr. Luck said.

During his time as Chairman, Mr. Luck presided over clemen­cy hear­ings for five death row pris­on­ers, includ­ing Julius Jones and Bigler Stouffer, and sup­port­ed clemen­cy in each case. He also points to the alarm­ing num­ber of death row exon­er­a­tions — at least 200 nation­al­ly, with 11 in Oklahoma alone — as evi­dence that the jus­tice sys­tem con­demns inno­cent peo­ple to death. ​“For a place that has more church­es per capi­ta than almost any oth­er place in the world, to also have a greater per­cent­age of its pop­u­la­tion behind prison walls than almost any place in the world inher­ent­ly holds some contradictions.”

Growing oppo­si­tion to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment from con­ser­v­a­tive voic­es like Mr. Luck’s comes as Oklahoma leg­is­la­tors are con­sid­er­ing bills in both cham­bers that could halt exe­cu­tions in the state until June 1, 2027. Senate Bill 601 made it through the Judiciary Committee in a 5 – 3 vote on March 6, 2025, sup­port­ed by two Democratic and three Republican Senators. If passed, the bill would use the mora­to­ri­um peri­od to estab­lish a five-per­son task force that would inves­ti­gate the rec­om­men­da­tions pre­vi­ous­ly made in a 2017 report from the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission. The bill’s spon­sor, Senator David Rader (R), told his col­leagues that there is strong evi­dence Oklahoma has con­vict­ed and sen­tenced inno­cent peo­ple to death, and that they should take the time to ensure the gov­ern­ment is not respon­si­ble for more ​“trag­ic mis­car­riages of jus­tice.” Pointing to Oklahoma’s exon­er­a­tion of 11 death row pris­on­ers, Sen. Rader says he ques­tions whether there are oth­er poten­tial­ly inno­cent peo­ple among the cur­rent­ly con­demned or pos­si­bly even those wrong­ful­ly exe­cut­ed by the state.

Opponents of SB 601 allege that it will ulti­mate­ly get rid of the death penal­ty in a state where vot­ers as recent­ly as 2016 decid­ed to retain it. Senator Shane Jett ques­tioned whether the mora­to­ri­um, if put in place, would just lead to anoth­er mora­to­ri­um or even abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty, rather than to sys­temic changes. Responding to ques­tions about SB 601 in a press con­fer­ence, Governor Kevin Stitt said the death penal­ty is retained for the ​“worst of the worst” crimes ​“and if a jury has rec­om­mend­ed the death penal­ty, then Oklahoma is going to exe­cute that law. To post­pone (exe­cu­tions) anoth­er two years to study this, I don’t know if I can do that.”

Sen. Rader, ahead of the com­mit­tee vote, remind­ed his col­leagues that this bill would only ​“pause” exe­cu­tions to allow the state to look into issues with the sys­tem. ​“The peo­ple have said we want this, but they’re look­ing at us to do it right,” Sen. Rader added. According to the Senator, Oklahoma has not fol­lowed through with any of the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission’s 46 rec­om­men­da­tions from its 2017 report.