Pro-Death Penalty Oklahoma Lawmaker Calls on Attorney General to Retest DNA Evidence for Prisoners on Death Row Where Accuracy is a Concern

UPDATE: On August 8, 2023, the Oklahoman report­ed that AG Drummond has declined Representative Humphrey’s request to retest DNA evi­dence in Anthony Sanchez’s case.

Oklahoma State Representative Justin Humphrey (pic­tured) has called on Attorney General Gentner Drummond to reex­am­ine DNA evi­dence in death-row pris­on­er Anthony Sanchez’s case and oth­er Oklahoma death row pris­on­ers. Citing Mr. Sanchez’s upcom­ing September exe­cu­tion date, Rep. Humphrey wrote in a let­ter to AG Drummond that he ​“com­plet­ed an ini­tial review of [Mr.] Sanchez’s case, and [he] believe[s] there is a sig­nif­i­cant issue with the pro­cess­ing of DNA evi­dence in death penal­ty cas­es in Oklahoma.” He said it is nec­es­sary to reprocess the DNA evi­dence used to con­vict Mr. Sanchez and oth­er Oklahoma pris­on­ers in order to con­firm guilt or pro­duce rea­son­able doubt where accu­ra­cy is in ques­tion. For Rep. Humphrey, who sup­ports the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, retest­ing evi­dence ​“would be a crit­i­cal step towards ensur­ing that the death penal­ty process is fair and just, not just in this case but in oth­ers like it.”

Mr. Sanchez was for­mal­ly sen­tenced to death in 2006 for the 1996 rape and mur­der of Jewell ​‘Juli’ Busken, a stu­dent at the University of Oklahoma. Ms. Busken’s mur­der was unsolved for about 8 years, but DNA evi­dence recov­ered from her cloth­ing even­tu­al­ly linked Mr. Sanchez to the crime. The iden­ti­ty of the per­pe­tra­tor has been con­test­ed, as Mr. Sanchez has main­tained his inno­cence from the begin­ning. Following the death of his father, Thomas Glen Sanchez, Mr. Sanchez filed a post-con­vic­tion peti­tion with the Court detail­ing that his father was the actu­al per­pe­tra­tor, and the state incor­rect­ly linked him to the mur­der. According to the peti­tion, the elder Sanchez admit­ted to his girl­friend on sev­er­al occa­sions pri­or to his death that he had killed Ms. Busken. The state courts reject­ed this evi­dence on the grounds of hearsay.

Supporters of Mr. Sanchez say that in addi­tion to the improp­er­ly con­nect­ed DNA evi­dence, the foot­prints at the crime scene were too small to belong to Mr. Sanchez and fin­ger­prints found did not match him but have nev­er been com­pared to his father. Mr. Sanchez’s coun­sel writes that ​“if Attorney General Drummond heeds the advice of Representative Humphrey, the whole State of Oklahoma will soon know for sure that [he is] an inno­cent man.” InJune 2023, he waived his oppor­tu­ni­ty to appear in front of the Oklahoma State Pardon and Parole Board, which was set to con­duct a clemen­cy hear­ing in ear­ly August. Instead of pre­sent­ing a case for clemen­cy, Mr. Sanchez con­tin­ues to work on a vari­ety of motions relat­ing to his inno­cence. He wrote that he does not ​“want clemen­cy. [He] want[s] to prove that [he] did not kill Juli Busken.”

Representative Humphrey, who also called for an inves­ti­ga­tion into pros­e­cu­tors with­hold­ing evi­dence in Richard Glossip’s case, acknowl­edges the issues sur­round­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in Oklahoma and believes ​“that it is imper­a­tive for our gov­ern­ment to go the extra mile to restore con­fi­dence in the Oklahoma Death Penalty process.”