The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals ruled on May 7 to extend the inter­val between exe­cu­tions to occur approx­i­mate­ly 90-days apart, spec­i­fy­ing that exe­cu­tions should be sched­uled for Thursdays, and that the Department of Corrections must be pro­vid­ed notice at least 35 days in advance. The Court also denied the Attorney General’s motion to set exe­cu­tion dates for groups of pris­on­ers, as has been done in the past, instead choos­ing to sched­ule executions individually. 

“Attorney General Drummond respects the Court’s rul­ing and will con­tin­ue to sup­port the fam­i­lies of vic­tims in every way pos­si­ble as they await jus­tice for their lost loved ones,” said Phil Bacharach, spokesper­son for the Attorney General. AG Drummond had cit­ed the last­ing emo­tion­al and men­tal trau­ma on cor­rec­tion­al staff as a rea­son to extend the exe­cu­tion inter­val from 60 days to 90 days. Shortly after tak­ing office in January 2023, AG Drummond had pre­vi­ous­ly request­ed the 30-day exe­cu­tion inter­val be extend­ed to 60-days, slow­ing down the pace of the 25 exe­cu­tions that had orig­i­nal­ly been sched­uled in July 2022. 

Although the judges were unan­i­mous in their deci­sion to for­go sched­ul­ing groups of pris­on­ers for exe­cu­tion, Judge Gary Lumpkin and Judge David Lewis dis­agreed with extend­ing the inter­val in between exe­cu­tions. Judge Lumpkin, who had pre­vi­ous­ly told DOC offi­cials to ​“suck it up” and ​“man up” dur­ing a March hear­ing, wrote that cor­rec­tion­al offi­cials could ​“meet the chal­lenges placed before them when prop­er lead­er­ship is pro­vid­ed.” In his opin­ion, he also high­light­ed that the courts should respect the legislature’s expe­dit­ed time­line. ​“Until the Legislature changes the pro­ce­dures, it is the respon­si­bil­i­ty of each per­son involved in that process to per­form his or her duties in a time­ly man­ner. This is true whether it be judges, pros­e­cu­tors, or those charged with car­ry­ing out the judge­ment and sen­tence entered by the cit­i­zens who served on the juries in each of these cas­es,” wrote Judge Lumpkin. 

In July 2022, for­mer Attorney General John O’Connor asked the courts to sched­ule 25 exe­cu­tion dates start­ing in August 2022 through December 2024. The exe­cu­tions were set to take place in four phas­es of six exe­cu­tions each, plus an addi­tion­al 25th exe­cu­tion. Within each phase, the exe­cu­tions were sched­uled at four-week inter­vals, fol­lowed by an exe­cu­tion-free month before the start of the next phase. Since then, eight of the 25 exe­cu­tions have been car­ried out. According to the local news sta­tion KOKH, 17 pris­on­ers on Oklahoma death row have exhaust­ed all appeals and are await­ing execution dates. 

Tags
Citation Guide
Sources

Colleen Wilson, Oklahoma court expands exe­cu­tion inter­val to 90 days, denies group sched­ul­ing, KOKH, May 7, 2024; ASHLYND HUFFMAN, Oklahoma court changes how exe­cu­tions are sched­uled after con­cerns raised about rate of killings, May 8, 2024;