Starting Thursday, the state of Oklahoma has scheduled seven execution dates for inmates on death row. It would be the state’s first execution in more than six years.
In 1977, Oklahoma was the first state to adopt lethal injection, through which an inmate is injected with a fatal mixture of drugs as its primary method for carrying out executions.
Who is scheduled to be executed in Oklahoma?
Seven inmates are scheduled for execution at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester over the next several months. Their names and scheduled execution dates are:
— John Grant; Oct. 28, 2021; Convicted of murdering Gay Carter, a prison worker, in 1998.
— Julius Jones; Nov. 18, 2021; Convicted of murdering Paul Howell, an Edmond businessman, in 1999.
— Bigler Stouffer; Dec. 9, 2021; Convicted of murdering Linda Reaves, a Putnam City schoolteacher, in 1985.
— Wade Lay; Jan. 6, 2022; Convicted of murdering Kenneth Anderson, a bank security guard, in 2004.
— Donald Grant; Jan. 27, 2022; Convicted of murdering hotel employees Brenda McElyea and Suzette Smith in 2001.
— Gilbert Postelle; Feb. 17, 2022; Convicted of murdering James “Donnie” Swindle Jr., Amy Wright, Terry Smith and James Alderson in an Oklahoma City trailer park in 2005.
— James Coddington; Mar. 10, 2022; Convicted of murdering Albert Troy Hale in 1997.
The case of Julius Jones has attracted nationwide interest in recent years. No legal defense has disputed the guilt of the other six inmates, but Jones has long maintained his innocence.
Legal organizations, social justice groups and celebrity figures have voiced support for Jones, and the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board recommended to Gov. Kevin Stitt in September that Jones’ sentence be commuted, or reduced.
Botched executions led to state hiatus
The last time Oklahoma executed a death row inmate was Charles Warner in January 2015. Warner and Clayton Lockett, executed in 2014, both died by what were widely criticized as “botched” lethal injections, in which the inmates were not administered the correct mixture of drugs to bring about a quick and humane death.
Since adopting lethal injection, Oklahoma has followed a three-step protocol for executions:
1. Midazolam, a fast-acting and short-lasting sedative
2. Vecuronium bromide, a paralytic agent used to stop breathing
3. Potassium chloride, a medication that stops the heart
Lockett notably moaned, struggled and writhed in pain during his failed execution, a procedure that took more than 40 minutes. Medical officials later said Lockett had not been thoroughly sedated.
After Warner’s execution, investigators discovered Warner had not been administered the proper drugs. The state’s supplier of lethal injection drugs had replaced the heart-stopping drug potassium chloride with potassium acetate, the wrong chemical.
Upon this discovery, the state halted all scheduled lethal injections, including that of death row inmate Richard Glossip, who received a stay of his execution from then-Gov. Mary Fallin hours before he was scheduled to die.
The controversy worked its way to the U.S. Supreme Court after Glossip and 20 other death row inmates sued in federal court, arguing against the constitutionality of the sedative midazolam. A divided Supreme Court ruled that the state’s drug mixture for lethal injections did not violate the “cruel and unusual punishment” amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Glossip, who also has long maintained his innocence for the murder that placed him on death row, has exhausted his appeals but has gained support from bipartisan lawmakers for an independent reinvestigation into his case.
Oklahoma one of 27 states with the death penalty
Since the hiatus in 2015, Oklahoma has explored alternative methods of administering the death penalty.
Fallin signed legislation allowing nitrogen gas to be used, if lethal injection is rendered unfeasible. After struggling for years to design a proper device and protocol for the use of nitrogen gas, Oklahoma abandoned the idea in 2020 and reverted back to lethal injection, once another supplier for the drugs had been reportedly secured.
Oklahoma is one of only three states (the others being Mississippi and Utah) that allow for firing squads to be used as an alternative method, although this has not been done in the state for any of its executions since 1915.
The 26 other states that retain the death penalty are:
— Alabama
— Arizona
— Arkansas
— California
— Florida
— Georgia
— Idaho
— Indiana
— Kansas
— Kentucky
— Louisiana
— Mississippi
— Missouri
— Montana
— Nebraska
— Nevada
— North Carolina
— Ohio
— Oregon
— Pennsylvania
— South Carolina
— South Dakota
— Tennessee
— Texas
— Utah
— Wyoming
Oklahoma ranks the highest per capita in execution rates, with a rate of 2.83 executions per every 100,000 residents, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
The state also once held the No. 1 ranking in the previous decade for its imprisoned population. Since passing some criminal justice reform initiatives in 2018, Oklahoma decreased its prison population by 4.7% to an incarceration rate of 639 per 100,000 residents, according to Department of Justice statistics. It now ranks second, behind only Louisiana at 680 per 100,000 people.
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(c) 2021 The Oklahoman
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