Former Oklahoma Corrections Officials Criticize ​“Relentless Pace of Executions”

In a let­ter to Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, dat­ed January 13, 2023, nine for­mer Oklahoma Department of Corrections (ODOC) offi­cials called atten­tion to the trau­ma expe­ri­enced by prison staff from repeat­ed exe­cu­tions. The ​“relent­less pace of exe­cu­tions means the prison nev­er real­ly returns to nor­mal oper­a­tions after the emo­tion­al and logis­ti­cal upheaval of an exe­cu­tion,” explained the offi­cials. ​“Indeed, reports from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary describe near-con­stant mock exe­cu­tions being con­duct­ed with­in earshot of pris­on­ers’ cells, staff offices, and visiting rooms.”

Their let­ter urged the state to space out exe­cu­tions fur­ther for the well-being of employ­ees, who are already expe­ri­enc­ing ​“last­ing trau­ma” from the then-exist­ing sched­ule. The state had pre­vi­ous­ly set dates for 25 exe­cu­tions over a 29-month peri­od. On January 17, the Attorney General request­ed a 60-day delay between each of the next seven executions.

The for­mer ODOC offi­cials also stat­ed that such a fast pace increas­es the like­li­hood of a botched exe­cu­tion: ​“This com­pressed exe­cu­tion sched­ule also increas­es the risk of some­thing going wrong dur­ing the exe­cu­tion process because the stress cre­at­ed by each exe­cu­tion com­pounds the dif­fi­cul­ty of an already com­plex pro­ce­dure. If even a rou­tine exe­cu­tion can inflict last­ing harm on cor­rec­tions staff, the trau­mat­ic impact of a botched exe­cu­tion is expo­nen­tial­ly worse. Oklahoma has expe­ri­enced this harm on mul­ti­ple occa­sions and should not need­less­ly place its hard­work­ing cor­rec­tion­al staff at risk of anoth­er such mistake.”

“The psy­cho­log­i­cal toll of car­ry­ing out a death sen­tence is well-doc­u­ment­ed… Post trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der, sub­stance abuse, and even sui­cide increase among cor­rec­tions staff fol­low­ing prox­im­i­ty to an exe­cu­tion, even among those who did not par­tic­i­pate direct­ly,” the officials wrote.

In DPIC’s February 2023 edi­tion of Discussions with DPIC, for­mer Oregon Superintendent of Prisons Frank Thompson also explained how the exe­cu­tion process cre­at­ed ​“an addi­tion­al group of vic­tims” among correctional staff.