On December 5, the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board nar­row­ly vot­ed (3 – 2) to deny clemen­cy to death row inmate Gary Welch, the first per­son sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in the coun­try in 2012. Welch was sen­tenced to death in 1996 for a mur­der that start­ed as a fight relat­ed to a drug deal. Welch said the vic­tim first stabbed him with a knife and he tried to defend him­self. ​“To me, this was life or death. It was just luck that I sur­vived,” said Welch. ​“My inten­tions were nev­er to kill him. But I also did­n’t intend for him to kill me either.” Welch’s co-defen­dant, Claudie Conover, was also ini­tial­ly sen­tenced to death, but the sen­tence was lat­er reduced to life with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. Conover died of nat­ur­al caus­es in 2001. In Oklahoma, the gov­er­nor makes the final deci­sion on clemen­cy, but must first have a pos­i­tive rec­om­men­da­tion from the Parole Board.

There have been 43 exe­cu­tions in 2011, includ­ing 2 in Oklahoma. The state comes behind Texas and Virginia in the total num­ber of exe­cu­tions since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1976.

(R. Petersen, ​“Clemency denied for Oklahoma death row inmate,” McAlester News-Capital, December 6, 2011). See Arbitrariness and Clemency.

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