NEW VOICES: Oklahoma Legislator Says Get the Death Penalty Right or Don’t Do It

A self-described tough-on-crime Oklahoma state rep­re­sen­ta­tive says has seri­ous doubts as to the reli­a­bil­i­ty of the Sooner State’s death penalty.

“As tax­pay­ers and vot­ers,” Republican State Representative Kevin McDugle (pic­tured) writes in a September 5, 2020 com­men­tary in the Tulsa World, ​“we are all par­tic­i­pat­ing in this deci­sion to kill — each of us has a fin­ger on the nee­dle that injects the poi­son. … These are life-and-death deci­sions that must be made with life-and-death accuracy.”

McDugle says Oklahoma’s his­tor­i­cal­ly ​“harsh stance against vio­lent crime” is a man­i­fes­ta­tion of its citizenry’s ​“keen sense of jus­tice.” ​“Oklahomans want a sys­tem in which the guilty are pun­ished and the inno­cent are pro­tect­ed,” he says. But as Oklahoma has pre­sent­ed a revised exe­cu­tion pro­to­col to the courts in an effort to resume exe­cu­tions, McDugle ques­tions: ​“Is that the sys­tem we have?”

Against that back­drop, McDugle wor­ries that Oklahoma’s death-penal­ty sys­tem risks exe­cut­ing the inno­cent. He high­lights the state’s attempts to exe­cute Richard Glossip as the ​“most unset­tling death penal­ty case in Oklahoma.” Glossip was sen­tenced to death in Oklahoma County, under the admin­is­tra­tion of District Attorney ​“Cowboy Bob” Macy, who sent 54 peo­ple to death row dur­ing a 21-year tenure that was marked by exten­sive mis­con­duct.

Glossip has been on death row for 23 years for alleged­ly pay­ing 19-year-old metham­phet­a­mine addict Justin Sneed to kill motel oper­a­tor Barry Van Treese in 1996. No phys­i­cal evi­dence linked Glossip to the mur­der, and the only evi­dence impli­cat­ing Glossip came from the mul­ti­ple con­flict­ing sto­ries Sneed gave to police after con­fess­ing to the mur­der. Macy agreed to a plea deal spar­ing Sneed the death penal­ty in exchange for his tes­ti­mo­ny against Glossip. 

Defense lawyers also allege that the Oklahoma County DA’s office has engaged in wit­ness intim­i­da­tion to impede Glossip’s attempts to prove his inno­cence. After two for­mer pris­on­ers who knew Sneed came for­ward with infor­ma­tion that Sneed had act­ed alone and that it was com­mon knowl­edge in the prison that Sneed had lied about Glossip to receive a reduced sen­tence, cur­rent Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater had arrest war­rants issued for both men. No jury has ever heard their statements. 

McDugle said that no jury has ever heard the evi­dence that ​“Sneed pre­sent­ed wild­ly dif­fer­ent accounts of how and why th[e] crime hap­pened,” that Sneed ​“was high on meth dur­ing the mur­der and dur­ing his police inter­ro­ga­tion,” and that there is an ​“avalanche of new wit­ness­es who are will­ing and able to tes­ti­fy that Richard Glossip had noth­ing to do with this mur­der.” The jury, he said, also was mis­led about the sever­i­ty of Sneed’s metham­phet­a­mine use. Glossip has nev­er wavered from his claim of inno­cence and even turned down a plea deal in which he had been offered a less­er sen­tence. His sched­uled September 2015 exe­cu­tion was halt­ed hours before it was to be car­ried out when exe­cu­tion­ers dis­cov­ered that the state’s drug sup­pli­er had pro­vid­ed them with the wrong drug.

Clemency, McDugle says, is Glossip’s ​“last best chance to be saved from anoth­er exe­cu­tion date. … The evi­dence nev­er heard in Glossip’s case should give every­one pause, and it’s just one exam­ple why our parole board must get it right when considering clemency.” 

“No mat­ter where you stand on the death penal­ty, no Oklahoman wants to kill an inno­cent man,” McDugle said ​“If we can not guar­an­tee accu­ra­cy, the exe­cu­tions should wait.”