Oklahoma Attorney General Requests 25 Execution Dates Despite Independent Investigation and Claims of Innocence, Serious Mental Illness, and Brain Damage

Oklahoma state pros­e­cu­tors are push­ing to sched­ule 25 exe­cu­tions over approx­i­mate­ly two years, after a fed­er­al judge denied death-row pris­on­ers’ chal­lenge to the state’s con­tro­ver­sial lethal-injection protocol.

On June 10, 2022, Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor asked the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to set exe­cu­tion dates for 25 of the 28 pris­on­ers who were par­ties to the exe­cu­tion-pro­to­col chal­lenge. The request came just four days after Judge Stephen Friot’s rul­ing that the state’s three-drug pro­ce­dure is con­sti­tu­tion­al. Attorneys for the pris­on­ers have said they plan to appeal Friot’s decision.

If grant­ed, the request would result in the largest mass sched­ul­ing of exe­cu­tions since Ohio set 27 exe­cu­tion dates in 2017. Only three of those exe­cu­tions were actu­al­ly car­ried out before Ohio Governor Mike DeWine halt­ed executions as a result of con­cerns about the same lethal injec­tion pro­to­col employed by Oklahoma. If Oklahoma pro­ceeds with the 25 exe­cu­tions, it would con­duct more exe­cu­tions over the next two years than have been car­ried out by all U.S. states com­bined since 2020.

Lawyers for the 25 pris­on­ers expressed con­cern that the vol­ume of exe­cu­tions will make it impos­si­ble for the pris­on­ers to ade­quate­ly present sig­nif­i­cant issues in their cas­es. At least eleven of the pris­on­ers includ­ed in the state’s request for exe­cu­tion dates have claims of inno­cence, seri­ous men­tal ill­ness, and/​or brain damage.

Under O’Connor’s pro­posed exe­cu­tion order, Richard Glossip would be the sec­ond per­son sched­uled to be put to death. Glossip has con­sis­tent­ly main­tained his inno­cence, and his inno­cence claims are cur­rent­ly the sub­ject of an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion com­mis­sioned by the Oklahoma leg­is­la­ture. Glossip’s attor­ney, Don Knight, said in a state­ment, ​“Oklahoma should not exe­cute an inno­cent man con­sid­er­ing 29 Republican leg­is­la­tors, includ­ing staunch con­ser­v­a­tives who com­mis­sioned an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion into Richard Glossip’s case, are still await­ing that report. Those find­ings could reveal excul­pa­to­ry infor­ma­tion pre­vi­ous­ly unknown until this point. Until every­one has the oppor­tu­ni­ty to exam­ine the final report, the Attorney General has a moral duty to delay the exe­cu­tion of Richard Glossip. No mat­ter where peo­ple stand on the death penal­ty, no one should want to kill an inno­cent man. The stakes are too high to rush this process. A man’s life is on the line.”

The pris­on­ers’ lawyers have also raised sig­nif­i­cant con­cerns about the con­vic­tions and death sen­tences of many of the oth­er men fac­ing exe­cu­tion. James Coddington, who would be the first per­son exe­cut­ed under O’Connor’s motion, expe­ri­enced pover­ty, trau­ma, and abuse from the time he was born. He has severe men­tal ill­ness and drug addic­tion, and imme­di­ate­ly expressed pro­found remorse for killing a friend while in the throes of a crack-cocaine binge. Three pris­on­ers (Richard Fairchild, Wendell Grissom, and John Hanson) have brain dam­age. Wade Lay has schiz­o­phre­nia, but was allowed to rep­re­sent him­self at tri­al. He has a hear­ing sched­uled for May 2023 to deter­mine whether he is com­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed. In many of the cas­es, juries did not hear sig­nif­i­cant mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence that might have influ­enced their sen­tenc­ing deci­sions: the victim’s fam­i­ly not want­i­ng a death sen­tence (Marlon Harmon), a diag­no­sis of PTSD result­ing from the col­lapse of access to basic neces­si­ties in the wake of Hurricane Katrina (Kendrick Simpson), a devel­op­men­tal dis­or­der and sev­er­al men­tal ill­ness­es (Kevin Underwood). Defense lawyers argued that the sheer num­ber of request­ed exe­cu­tion dates will over­whelm courts and the Pardon and Parole Board, who will be respon­si­ble for con­sid­er­ing these cases.

The motion does not request a spe­cif­ic exe­cu­tion sched­ule, but the attor­ney gen­er­al’s motion asks the court to set the dates about four weeks apart, with some larg­er gaps to accom­mo­date the sched­ule of the Pardon and Parole Board, which meets only once a month. ​“By the State’s cal­cu­la­tions[,] … it will be nec­es­sary to sched­ule some exe­cu­tions more than four weeks apart,” O’Connor said. ​“However, the State respect­ful­ly asks that — for the sake of the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies, many of whom have wait­ed decades — as many exe­cu­tions as pos­si­ble are set four weeks apart.”

The Catholic Archbishop of Oklahoma City, Paul S. Coakley, imme­di­ate­ly con­demned the attor­ney general’s request, say­ing, ​“Killing 25 human beings as pun­ish­ment for killing — even if guilty — only per­pet­u­ates the cycle of vio­lence and offers none of the mer­cy and oppor­tu­ni­ty for redemp­tion Jesus asks of us. We also can’t undo it if we’re wrong.”