For the first time in two decades, Oklahoma will go at least two years with­out an exe­cu­tion. As part of an agree­ment in a fed­er­al law­suit brought by the state’s death row pris­on­ers, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt (pic­tured) has said the state will not request exe­cu­tion dates for at least five months after the state adopts a new exe­cu­tion pro­to­col. Because of this, when the Oklahoma Board of Corrections met on September 13, 2016, the state already could not have sought to con­duct any exe­cu­tion until at least February 2017. When the cor­rec­tions board adjourned with­out con­sid­er­ing any new exe­cu­tion plan, it ensured that even more time would pass between exe­cu­tions in the state. The last time Oklahoma went at least two years with­out an exe­cu­tion was from March 13, 1992 to March 20, 1995, between the exe­cu­tions of Olan Robison and Thomas Grasso. The cur­rent exe­cu­tion hia­tus comes in the wake of three con­sec­u­tive botched exe­cu­tion attempts in Oklahoma. On April 29, 2014, prison per­son­nel could not locate a usable vein in the arm of Clayton Lockett and used a wrong-sized nee­dle in attempt­ing to insert an IV in a vein in Lockett’s groin. After 43 min­utes, as the botched pro­ce­dure was being halt­ed, Lockett died of a heart attack. On January 15, 2015, Oklahoma exe­cut­ed Charles Warner in vio­la­tion of state pro­ce­dures when the state’s anony­mous drug provider sup­plied the wrong exe­cu­tion drug and no one in the exe­cu­tion process noticed the error. In September 2015, the exe­cu­tion of Richard Glossip was halt­ed at the last moment after state offi­cials dis­cov­ered that they had again obtained the wrong exe­cu­tion drug. A grand jury inves­ti­gat­ing the state’s botched exe­cu­tions issued a scathing report in May 2016 say­ing admin­is­tra­tive ​“para­noia” over keep­ing exe­cu­tion infor­ma­tion secret ​“cloud­ed the judg­ment” of cor­rec­tions offi­cials, caus­ing them ​“to bla­tant­ly vio­late their own poli­cies.” Following the Corrections Board meet­ing, Pruitt issued a state­ment seek­ing to assure vic­tims’ fam­i­lies that process of review­ing a new exe­cu­tion pro­to­col ​“will con­tin­ue to be both delib­er­ate and empir­i­cal.” Pruitt expressed con­fi­dence that the new lead­er­ship of the state’s cor­rec­tions depart­ment — appoint­ed after the retire­ment of key cor­rec­tions offi­cials involved in the exe­cu­tion process — ​“is tak­ing the appro­pri­ate time need­ed to ensure the exe­cu­tion pro­to­cols are ful­ly in place and with­out error in the most effi­cient way pos­si­ble.” A DOC spokesman described the pro­to­col as ​“a work in progress,” and said “[t]here cur­rent­ly is no time­line on when any­thing will be released.” Glossip — whose case rais­es sig­nif­i­cant ques­tions of inno­cence that have drawn world­wide atten­tion—and four oth­er Oklahoma death row inmates have exhaust­ed their appeals and face exe­cu­tion dates once the state adopts an execution protocol. 

Rep. Mike Christian, a for­mer high­way patrol­man who spon­sored both the state law to autho­rize the use of lethal gas as a back­up exe­cu­tion method and a November bal­lot ini­tia­tive that would remove author­i­ty from Oklahoma’s state courts to declare its death penal­ty prac­tices uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, expressed dis­ap­point­ment in the length of time prison offi­cials have tak­en to devel­op a new pro­to­col. Christian said he ​“think[s] lethal injec­tion is on its way out the door” and ques­tioned why cor­rec­tions offi­cials did­n’t ​“at least have some kind of pro­to­cols estab­lished for nitro­gen hypox­ia.” Ryan Kiesel, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma, said ​“The last thing the state of Oklahoma needs to do is rush back into the busi­ness of exe­cut­ing peo­ple. We would pre­fer that the state get out of the busi­ness of exe­cut­ing its cit­i­zens alto­geth­er,” he said.

(S. Murphy, ​“Oklahoma Still Mulling Execution Protocols, Ensuring Delays,” Associated Press, September 13, 2016.) See Lethal Injection.

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