State Legislators Discuss Death Penalty

Oklahoma is expected to resume executions next year after a long hiatus. A moratorium was placed on capital punishment after a couple of botched executions. Wednesday, a House of Representatives interim study looked into whether the state is ready to begin executions again, and whether innocent people will be killed by the state. 

“Do I believe that we have people on death row today that are innocent?” Representative Kevin McDugle (R) Broken Arrow asked. “Personally, I believe we do.”

The study looked into two topics whether the state is capable of properly administering the lethal cocktail to death row inmates after two botched executions. And are there death row inmates facing lethal injection who are innocent? 

The Department of Corrections said it’s ready to resume. “

Today we are actually prepared to resume executions in accordance with our policy in state statute,” said Scott Crow, Director of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.

The committee also looked into whether the state could execute innocent inmates. Specifically, members talked about the case of Richard Glossip who was convicted of ordering the beating death of a motel owner in 1997. 

Glossip’s attorney said his client, who was the subject of a recent documentary, was railroaded.

“He never had a good lawyer. He never had anyone who would do the work that was needed to be done to make sure that if the state was going to kill Rich, it was justified in doing so,” said attorney Don Knight.

In two trials, only two defense witnesses and no defense experts were called. 

“We identified 433 possible witnesses in this case. We’re doing this 20 years later. We found 180 people and interviewed them,” said Knight.

“I do believe we do have innocent people that are in the chambers,” said McDugle.

When asked if he believes that means the state could execute innocent people, McDugle responded, “I believe that if we execute Richard Glossip that we’ve executed an innocent person.”

Glossip could be one of the first inmates put to death once executions resume.