Republican-Led State Legislative Committee Considers Death Penalty Moratorium in Oklahoma

On October 5, 2023, the Oklahoma House Judiciary Criminal Committee met to dis­cuss ongo­ing con­cerns regard­ing the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of rec­om­mend­ing a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions. Republican Representative Kevin McDugle (pic­tured) called for the meet­ing and is a long­time sup­port­er of the death penal­ty. He spoke of his increas­ing con­cern regard­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of exe­cut­ing an inno­cent per­son, par­tic­u­lar­ly cit­ing the case of Richard Glossip, who has long main­tained his inno­cence. At the meet­ing, Rep. McDugle told his col­leagues that ​“there are cas­es right now… [of] peo­ple on death row who don’t deserve the death penal­ty… The process in Oklahoma is not right. Either we fix it, or we put a mora­to­ri­um in place until we can fix it.” Rep. McDugle not­ed that the mora­to­ri­um idea has sup­port from many of his Republican colleagues.

Oklahoma is respon­si­ble for 122 exe­cu­tions since 1976, sec­ond only to Texas’ near­ly 600 exe­cu­tions in the same peri­od. In July 2022, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals set exe­cu­tion dates for 25 pris­on­ers after a near­ly six-year mora­to­ri­um put in place by the same court in 2015 fol­low­ing the Attorney General’s Office dis­cov­ery that the wrong drugs were used in the botched exe­cu­tion of Clayton Lockett in 2014. In 2017, an inde­pen­dent bipar­ti­san review com­mit­tee was estab­lished to review Oklahoma’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment process. The review com­mit­tee rec­om­mend­ed a mora­to­ri­um stay in place until more than 40 rec­om­men­da­tions were enact­ed. Since the committee’s report was released, Oklahoma has imple­ment­ed almost none of the proposed recommendations.

Judge Andy Lester, a for­mer fed­er­al mag­is­trate judge, gen­er­al coun­sel for state law­mak­ers, and the co-chair of the 2017 inde­pen­dent review com­mis­sion told the House Judiciary Criminal Committee that ​“from start to fin­ish, the Oklahoma cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem is fun­da­men­tal­ly bro­ken.” Judge Lester said the sys­tem ​“is so bro­ken that we can­not know whether some­one who has been con­demned is actu­al­ly deserv­ing of the ulti­mate penal­ty the state can impose.” Adam Luck, the for­mer chair of the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board also spoke at the com­mit­tee meet­ing, sim­i­lar­ly focus­ing on the prospect of exe­cut­ing an inno­cent per­son. Mr. Luck dis­cussed how his per­son­al views on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment changed over time. ​“Simply put, I real­ized I could not sup­port the death penal­ty in any case, because I could not sup­port the unde­ni­able, unchange­able risk of exe­cut­ing an inno­cent per­son,” tes­ti­fied Mr. Luck.

Oklahoma is respon­si­ble for 11 death row exon­er­a­tions in the United States since 1973.