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Entries tagged with “Oklahoma County”

Policy Issues

Innocence

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Sep 20, 2023

Glynn Simmons Exonerated 48 Years After He Was Sentenced to Death in Oklahoma

Glynn Simmons, who was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in Oklahoma in 1975, has been exon­er­at­ed after Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Behenna dropped charges against him. Mr. Simmons told The Black Wall Street Times, ​“I’m hap­py, and I’m free. It’s a long, long strug­gle. … We need to reimag­ine jus­tice and how we do it.” DA Behenna said of the case, ​“One of the things that I stand by very strong­ly is a defen­dan­t’s right to a fair tri­al, where he has all the evi­dence to defend…

Policy Issues

Innocence

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Clemency

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Upcoming Executions

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Jan 27, 2023

Oklahoma Attorney General Appoints Special Counsel to Conduct ​‘Thorough Review’ of Richard Glossip’s Case

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond has appoint­ed a spe­cial coun­sel to con­duct a ​‘thor­ough review’ of the case of death-row pris­on­er Richard Glossip, who has faced nine exe­cu­tion dates despite strong evi­dence that he is inno­cent of the 1997 alleged mur­der-for-hire of an Oklahoma City motel own­er. In a news release issued January 26, 2023, two days after the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals resched­uled Glossip’s exe­cu­tion from…

Policy Issues

Race

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DPIC Reports

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Oct 14, 2022

DPIC Releases New Report on Race and the Death Penalty in Oklahoma 

The Death Penalty Information Center has released a new report on race and the death penal­ty in Oklahoma, plac­ing the state’s death penal­ty sys­tem in his­tor­i­cal con­text. The report doc­u­ments the role that race has played in Oklahoma’s death penal­ty and details the per­va­sive impact that racial dis­crim­i­na­tion con­tin­ues to have in the admin­is­tra­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Deeply Rooted: How Racial History Informs Oklahoma’s Death…

Policy Issues

Arbitrariness

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Innocence

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Prosecutorial Accountability

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Race

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Executions Overview

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Aug 24, 2022

New DPIC Podcast: Former Governor Brad Henry and Former U.S. Magistrate Judge Andy Lester, co-Chairs of the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission, Call for Halt to Executions

In the August 2022 Discussions With DPIC pod­cast, for­mer Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry and for­mer U.S. Magistrate Judge Andy Lester (pic­tured), two of the co-chairs of the bipar­ti­san Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission, call on state offi­cials not to rush for­ward with the state’s planned exe­cu­tion of 25 pris­on­ers. Speaking with DPIC exec­u­tive direc­tor Robert Dunham, Governor Henry, a Democrat, and Judge Lester, a Republican, dis­cuss the…

Policy Issues

Innocence

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Mental Illness

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Executions Overview

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Jul 06, 2022

Oklahoma Court Schedules 25 Executions Between August 2022 and December 2024

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has set exe­cu­tion dates for 25 of the state’s 43 death-row pris­on­ers, sched­ul­ing near­ly an exe­cu­tion a month from August 2022 through December 2024. If car­ried out, the exe­cu­tion sched­ule, unprece­dent­ed in the state’s his­to­ry, would put to death 58% of the state’s death row, includ­ing mul­ti­ple pris­on­ers with severe men­tal ill­ness, brain dam­age, and claims of…

Executions

Executions Overview

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Feb 18, 2022

Oklahoma County Becomes Nation’s Third Most Prolific County Executioner as State Puts Intellectually Impaired Teen Offender to Death

When Oklahoma exe­cut­ed Gilbert Postelle on February 17, 2022, it came with a dubi­ous dis­tinc­tion. The intel­lec­tu­al­ly impaired man who was 18 years old at the time of his offense became the 44th per­son pros­e­cut­ed in Oklahoma County to be put to death since exe­cu­tions resumed in the U.S. in 1977. His death made the coun­ty the nation’s third-most pro­lif­ic coun­ty exe­cu­tion­er over the past half-cen­tu­ry, tied with Tarrant and Bexar coun­ties in…

Policy Issues

Arbitrariness

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Mental Illness

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Lethal Injection

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Jan 27, 2022

Oklahoma Executes Donald Grant: First U.S. Execution of 2022 is 43rd 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…