Oklahoma County Becomes Nation’s Third Most Prolific County Executioner as State Puts Intellectually Impaired Teen Offender to Death

When Oklahoma exe­cut­ed Gilbert Postelle on February 17, 2022, it came with a dubi­ous dis­tinc­tion. The intel­lec­tu­al­ly impaired man who was 18 years old at the time of his offense became the 44^th per­son pros­e­cut­ed in Oklahoma County to be put to death since exe­cu­tions resumed in the U.S. in 1977. His death made the coun­ty the nation’s third-most pro­lif­ic coun­ty exe­cu­tion­er over the past half-cen­tu­ry, tied with Tarrant and Bexar coun­ties in Texas. (Click to enlarge graph­ic.)

Postelle was the fourth and final per­son exe­cut­ed as part of a sched­uled five-month, sev­en-per­son exe­cu­tion spree that Oklahoma announced after a six-year hia­tus prompt­ed by a string of botched exe­cu­tions. His exe­cu­tion took place just 11 days before a fed­er­al judge will begin hear­ing evi­dence on the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the state’s lethal-injec­tion pro­to­col in a tri­al that was sched­uled before the exe­cu­tion spree began. 

Five of the sev­en men sched­uled for exe­cu­tion dur­ing the spree were sen­tenced to death in Oklahoma County. Bigler Stouffer was exe­cut­ed December 9, 2021 after Governor Kevin Stitt reject­ed a rec­om­men­da­tion by the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board that his sen­tence be com­mut­ed to life with­out parole. Donald Grant was exe­cut­ed on January 27, 2022. Stitt com­mut­ed Julius Jones’ death sen­tence to life with­out parole on November 18, 2021, four hours before he was sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed. On December 23, 2021, a fed­er­al court stayed James Coddington​’s exe­cu­tion.

In the mod­ern era of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the U.S., dat­ing back to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1972 deci­sion that struck down then-exist­ing death penal­ty statutes, no coun­ty out­side of Texas has exe­cut­ed as many peo­ple as Oklahoma County. Only Harris (130) and Dallas (62) coun­ties have exe­cut­ed more. Oklahoma County and four coun­ties in Texas col­lec­tive­ly account for more than one in five U.S. exe­cu­tions (324 of 1543) in the past fifty years. Texas (573 exe­cu­tions) and Oklahoma (116) by them­selves are respon­si­ble for 45% of all exe­cu­tions in the U.S. dur­ing that period. 

Oklahoma County’s his­to­ry of death-penal­ty use was defined by the 21-year tenure of District Attorney ​“Cowboy Bob” Macy, who sent 54 peo­ple to death row — more than any oth­er indi­vid­ual pros­e­cu­tor in the U.S. Courts found mis­con­duct in at least one-third of Macy’s cas­es. A DPIC analy­sis found that courts had over­turned death sen­tences in eleven of those cas­es. Twenty-three of the 54 death sen­tences obtained by Macy relied on the tes­ti­mo­ny of police chemist Joyce Gilchrist, who gave false and mis­lead­ing tes­ti­mo­ny that an FBI inves­ti­ga­tion con­clud­ed ​“went beyond the accept­able lim­its of sci­ence.” Eleven were exe­cut­ed before Gilchrist’s mis­con­duct was exposed. 

Five peo­ple — Clifford Bowen, Curtis McCarty, Robert Lee Miller, Yancy Douglas, and Paris Powell — who were con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in Oklahoma County have been exon­er­at­ed after courts found evi­dence of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct. Two oth­ers — Richard Glossip and Julius Jones — came with­in hours of exe­cu­tion despite strong inno­cence claims. Glossip’s September 30, 2015 exe­cu­tion was halt­ed at the last minute when prison offi­cials revealed they had obtained the incor­rect exe­cu­tion drug. Jones came with­in four hours of exe­cu­tion on November 18, 2021 before Governor Kevin Stitt grant­ed him clemen­cy. Both have alleged that pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct con­tributed to their con­vic­tions. Bigler Stouffer also main­tained his inno­cence but was exe­cut­ed even though Gilchrist also report­ed­ly pro­vid­ed false foren­sic tes­ti­mo­ny in his case.

Postelle was 18 years old, intel­lec­tu­al­ly impaired, men­tal­ly ill, and addict­ed to metham­phet­a­mines when, at the direc­tion of his men­tal­ly ill father, he, his broth­er, and a fourth man par­tic­i­pat­ed in the fatal shoot­ings of four peo­ple. His father delu­sion­al­ly believed that one of the men had been respon­si­ble for a motor­cy­cle acci­dent that had left the father seri­ous­ly brain dam­aged. Postelle was sen­tenced to death for two of the shoot­ings — the only per­son sen­tenced to death for the killings. His father was found incom­pe­tent to stand tri­al and the oth­ers received life sentences.

Postelle’s IQ has been mea­sured in the mid-to-high 70s, which when adjust­ed for out­dat­ed test-tak­ing norms and stan­dard errors of IQ mea­sure­ment placed him at the bor­der or with­in the range of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. When he was 12 years old, he scored in the low­est 0.1 per­centile in adap­tive func­tion­ing. A clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist diag­nosed him with major depres­sion, with signs of post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der, psy­chosis, and pos­si­ble schiz­o­phre­nia. The U.S. Constitution pro­hibits the exe­cu­tion of indi­vid­u­als who are intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled or were younger than age 18 at the time of the offense. His exe­cu­tion reflects a con­tin­u­ing trend in the U.S. in which states and the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment have put to death vul­ner­a­ble, less cul­pa­ble defen­dants who are inel­i­gi­ble or bare­ly eli­gi­ble for the death penalty.

In September 2021, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals set sev­en exe­cu­tion dates for pris­on­ers who were deemed inel­i­gi­ble to be par­ties to a law­suit chal­leng­ing the state’s lethal-injec­tion pro­to­col because they had failed to iden­ti­fy alter­na­tive exe­cu­tion meth­ods. Coddington’s exe­cu­tion was lat­er stayed after a fed­er­al judge rein­stat­ed him to the lethal-injec­tion chal­lenge find­ing he had mis­tak­en­ly believed that ​“he had already effec­tive­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ed his choice of a fir­ing squad” as his ​“alter­na­tive method of execution.”