Former U.S. Judge Andy Lester Calls for Moratorium of Oklahoma’s ​“Fundamentally Flawed” Capital Punishment System Until Significant Reforms are Implemented

“Commission mem­bers unan­i­mous­ly rec­om­mend that the cur­rent mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty be extend­ed,” said a near­ly 300-page report pub­lished by the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission in 2017. More than six years lat­er, almost none of the 45 rec­om­men­da­tions have been imple­ment­ed. Former U.S. Magistrate Judge Andy Lester, one of three co-chairs of the Commission, reit­er­at­ed the call for a mora­to­ri­um in a November 27, 2023 let­ter to the edi­tors of non​doc​.com. 

​“Whether you sup­port cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment or oppose it, one thing is clear. Oklahoma’s sys­tem is so fun­da­men­tal­ly flawed that we can­not know that some­one who has been con­demned to death actu­al­ly deserves the ulti­mate penal­ty. Unjust con­vic­tions are bad. But an unjust exe­cu­tion would be intol­er­a­ble. We can and must do bet­ter,” wrote Mr. Lester. ​“The reforms the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission rec­om­mend­ed are a blue­print for a bet­ter, just sys­tem. Until sig­nif­i­cant reforms are imple­ment­ed, Oklahoma should put a mora­to­ri­um on all executions.” 

Mr. Lester high­lights a few of the Committee’s rec­om­men­da­tions relat­ing to inno­cence pro­tec­tion, foren­sics, pros­e­cu­tors, and defense that have remained unad­dressed to illus­trate the lack of progress in Oklahoma. ​“As these four areas exem­pli­fy, vir­tu­al­ly none of the commission’s more than 40 pro­posed reforms have been imple­ment­ed. Yet, despite the numer­ous, seri­ous flaws in Oklahoma’s imple­men­ta­tion of the death penal­ty, the mora­to­ri­um was lift­ed and our state has bar­reled ahead with an unprece­dent­ed num­ber of exe­cu­tions,” explains Mr. Lester. In the last three years, Oklahoma has car­ried out 10 exe­cu­tions. 

On October 5, 2023, Republican Representative Kevin McDugle, long­time pro­po­nent of the death penal­ty, called for a meet­ing in the Oklahoma House Judiciary Criminal Committee to dis­cuss the sta­tus quo of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the state and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of imple­ment­ing a mora­to­ri­um. ​“The process in Oklahoma is not right. Either we fix it, or we put a mora­to­ri­um in place until we can fix it,” said Rep. McDugle. Since 1973, Oklahoma has had 11 death row exonerations.