Oklahoma Set to Carry Out Its First Execution of 2024, Attorney General Told to ​“Man Up” in Response to Concerns About Pace of Executions

Oklahoma is sched­uled to exe­cute Michael Smith on April 4, the state’s first exe­cu­tion of 2024. Convicted in 2003 for the sep­a­rate 2002 mur­ders of Janet Moore and Sharath Babu Pulluru in Oklahoma County, Mr. Smith has spent the last 21 years on death row. Following his arrest, Mr. Smith con­fessed to his involve­ment in these killings to the police, but now says that he ​“was high on drugs” dur­ing his inter­ro­ga­tion and does not ​“even remem­ber getting arrested.”

On March 6, 2024, the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board held a clemen­cy hear­ing for Mr. Smith at which his attor­neys told the board about his intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty and years of drug abuse that fur­ther impaired his men­tal abil­i­ty. They also high­light­ed doubts sur­round­ing his involve­ment in the mur­ders. Mark Henricksen, one of Mr. Smith’s cur­rent attor­neys, told the board that if his tri­al coun­sel had prop­er­ly rep­re­sent­ed him and intro­duced evi­dence of his intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, he like­ly would not be eli­gi­ble for exe­cu­tion. However, attor­neys for the state dis­agreed, argu­ing that Mr. Smith con­tin­ues to present a threat to oth­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly not­ing a 2019 infrac­tion in which Mr. Smith was found in pos­ses­sion of a weapon. Ultimately, the Board vot­ed 4 – 1 deny­ing clemen­cy for Mr. Smith, paving the way for his exe­cu­tion by lethal injec­tion. In a state­ment fol­low­ing the Board’s vote, Attorney General Gentner Drummond said that he is ​“pleased the Pardon and Parole Board denied clemen­cy for the ruth­less killer who took Janet Moore and Sharath Pulluru away from their fam­i­lies. Justice will final­ly be served for their tragic loss.”

Following the board’s denial, fam­i­ly mem­bers of Mr. Smith and anti-death penal­ty advo­cates announced at a press con­fer­ence that new claims from a state’s wit­ness could raise enough doubt to war­rant a stay of exe­cu­tion. They also told the press that there is DNA evi­dence that the state has not test­ed that could also raise doubts about Mr. Smith’s involve­ment. ​“We’re ask­ing the gov­er­nor, ​‘Please have a heart. Please under­stand that this is a human’s life you’re tak­ing,” said Nicole Smith, Mr. Smith’s sis­ter-in-law. A pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tor work­ing on Mr. Smith’s case also told the press that ​“there’s a whole slew of prob­lems with this case that have not been rec­og­nized or prop­er­ly exam­ined.” On April 2, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA) denied an emer­gency stay of exe­cu­tion for Mr. Smith, based on the claim that untest­ed foren­sic evi­dence might under­mine his con­vic­tion. The court wrote that Mr. Smith ​“gave a very detailed, high­ly cor­rob­o­rat­ed con­fes­sion to police,” and his con­fes­sion was cor­rob­o­rat­ed by ​“two addi­tion­al con­fes­sions and phys­i­cal evi­dence from both crime scenes.” The OCCA held that it did not believe fur­ther foren­sic test­ing would under­mine the integri­ty of Mr. Smith’s conviction.

Mr. Smith’s sched­uled exe­cu­tion comes just days after AG Drummond asked the OCCA to fur­ther delay the time between exe­cu­tions. AG Drummond pre­vi­ous­ly asked the Court to require 60 days but is now ask­ing for 90 days between sched­uled exe­cu­tions, cit­ing the emo­tion­al and men­tal trau­ma on cor­rec­tion­al staff as a rea­son. In 2021, the OCCA sched­uled exe­cu­tions for 25 pris­on­ers in under three years, which would have cut the state’s death row pop­u­la­tion by 58%. The Attorney General’s Office and Department of Corrections believe that pro­vid­ing addi­tion­al time between exe­cu­tions ​“would com­bat trau­ma, staffing short­ages, and ensure the state doesn’t have anoth­er botched exe­cu­tion.” They added that the cur­rent pace of exe­cu­tions is not sus­tain­able. During a hear­ing to dis­cuss these poten­tial changes, OCCA Judge Gary Lumpkin told offi­cials that the cor­rec­tion­al staff tasked with car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions need to ​“suck it up” and ​“man up.” Judge Lumpkin told AG Drummond that he does not believe the ​“sym­pa­thy stuff.” ​“We set a rea­son­able amount of time to start this out, and y’all keep push­ing it and push­ing it and push­ing it,” Judge Lumpkin added. ​“Who’s to say next month you won’t come in and say I need 120 days? This stuff needs to stop, and peo­ple need to suck it up, real­ize they have a hard job to do, and get it done in a time­ly, proficient manner.”

Judge Lumpkin told AG Drummond that 30 days is ​“more than enough time” between sched­uled exe­cu­tions, but AG Drummond cit­ed con­cerns with botched exe­cu­tions if the state was to main­tain that pace. ​“I do not want, as chief law offi­cer, to over­see a failed exe­cu­tion. I am present with every exe­cu­tion. I look the defen­dant in the eye as he dies. I look the men and women that admin­is­ter those lethal injec­tions in the eye after they’ve admin­is­tered it, and I have sym­pa­thy for the strain on them.” AG Drummond’s office also asked the OCCA to set exe­cu­tion dates for six more men on death row: Richard Rojem, Emmanuel Littlejohn, Kevin Underwood, Wendell Grissom, Tremane Wood, and Kendrick Simpson.