Oklahoma Executes Donald Grant: First U.S. Execution of 2022 is 43^rd from County with Most Executions Outside Texas

Oklahoma car­ried out the first exe­cu­tion of 2022 in the U.S. on January 27, inject­ing Donald Grant (pic­tured, at his clemen­cy hear­ing) with a three-drug chem­i­cal cock­tail whose con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty is the sub­ject of a pend­ing fed­er­al tri­al. Grant, whose exe­cu­tion drew inter­na­tion­al atten­tion because of his seri­ous men­tal ill­ness, was pro­nounced dead at 10:16 a.m. local time.

Grant is the 43^rd per­son cap­i­tal­ly pros­e­cut­ed in Oklahoma County to be put to death since exe­cu­tions resumed in the U.S. in January 1977. The coun­ty is one of five in the coun­try — along with Harris (Houston), Dallas, Tarrant (Fort Worth), and Bexar (San Antonio) coun­ties in Texas — that by them­selves account for 20% of all exe­cu­tions in the U.S. in the mod­ern era (323 out of 1,541). Oklahoma County accounts for more exe­cu­tions than any oth­er coun­ty out­side of Texas and has car­ried out more than twice the num­ber of exe­cu­tions as the next-high­est coun­ty (St. Louis County, Missouri, with 19). It was one of only two U.S. coun­ties to impose more than one death sen­tence in 2021.

Gilbert Postelle, the next per­son sched­uled for exe­cu­tion in Oklahoma, was also pros­e­cut­ed and sen­tenced to death in Oklahoma County. If his sched­uled February 17 exe­cu­tion is car­ried out, Oklahoma County will be tied with Bexar and Tarrant coun­ties as the third most pro­lif­ic coun­ty exe­cu­tion­er in the mod­ern era. Julius Jones, whose death sen­tence was com­mut­ed four hours before his sched­uled exe­cu­tion on November 18, 2021 based on con­cerns about his inno­cence, also was sen­tenced to death in Oklahoma County. Five peo­ple wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in Oklahoma County have been exon­er­at­ed, the fourth most of any coun­ty in the United States.

Grant’s lawyers had asked the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board to com­mute his death sen­tence, cit­ing his diag­no­sis with schiz­o­phre­nia and his brain dam­age. ​“Executing some­one as men­tal­ly ill and brain dam­aged as Donald Grant is out of step with evolv­ing stan­dards of decen­cy,” they argued at his clemen­cy hear­ing. However, the board vot­ed 4 – 1 to deny com­mu­ta­tion. Grant had also sought to stay his exe­cu­tion until the fed­er­al dis­trict court could con­duct a tri­al on the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Oklahoma’s lethal-injec­tion pro­to­col. That tri­al is sched­uled to begin on February 28, 2022. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to stay Grant’s execution.

In con­trast to the October 28, 2021 exe­cu­tion of John Grant, wit­ness­es described Donald Grant’s exe­cu­tions as ​“unevent­ful.” Witnesses to John Grant’s exe­cu­tion report­ed that he expe­ri­enced more than two dozen ​“full body con­vul­sions” and vom­it­ed sev­er­al times over a 15-minute peri­od dur­ing his exe­cu­tion. Prison offi­cials, how­ev­er, assert­ed that the exe­cu­tion took place ​“with­out com­pli­ca­tion.” The prob­lems with John Grant’s exe­cu­tion added to exist­ing con­cerns about the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the state’s lethal-injec­tion pro­to­col, which uses mida­zo­lam, a drug that has been impli­cat­ed in sev­er­al botched executions.