A bipartisan private commission recommended that a court-ordered stay on executions in Oklahoma remain in effect
until “significant reforms” are accomplished, citing concerns about resources
available to those facing death sentences and the faulty application of
execution procedures, reported the Tulsa World.
The Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission
released its findings and nearly four dozen recommendations in a nearly
300-page report on a study of capital cases from initial contact with police to
the day defendants are put to death.
Former Gov. Brad Henry, who helped lead the effort,
announced that the commission unanimously recommended that the moratorium be
extended due to what he said were serious flaws in the way Oklahoma handles
death-penalty cases. He said the number of death-row exonerees from Oklahoma —
10, according to the Death Penalty Information Center — was among his biggest
worries, along with the discovery of the limitations capital defendants have
when presenting legal defenses.
“If you look at the various defense counsel
organizations, whether it’s (the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System) or Oklahoma
County or Tulsa County public defenders, they are just overwhelmed with felony
cases,” Henry said. “They don’t have enough attorneys. They don’t have the
funding that they need, especially in death-penalty cases, to hire
investigators (or) to hire experts. You have to decide whether you want to pay
to do it right, and either you do or you don’t.”
Oklahoma has put more than 100 people to death in
the modern era of capital punishment, and according to commission member and
trial lawyer Robert Alexander, it’s almost certain that at least one of them
was innocent and couldn’t prove it because of financial reasons.
“Our report has found, 41 years (after the death
penalty resumed), systemic flaws in our death-penalty system,” Alexander said.
“Whenever there’s a systemic flaw in the system, any injustices that system
could cause … fall on the people with the fewest resources to navigate that
system.”
The commission also noted that two forms of evidence
— forensics and witness identification — were determined to be among the most
unreliable.
Henry said he came to the conclusion that the
process as it stands needs to be “overhauled” by policymakers, and he said
there are good reasons for conservatives to be concerned about the practice
despite voters’ November decision to protect the death penalty in the state
constitution with State Question 776.
“What we all agreed on was that if you’re going to
have the death penalty, it ought to be done right,” Henry said of the
commission. “It ought to be done in a way that, as best we can, ensures no
innocent person is ever put to death by the state of Oklahoma.”
Co-Chairman Andy Lester, a former federal
magistrate, said the fact that an execution is permanent makes it paramount
that everyone involved be certain that those on death row are in fact guilty
and that they’ve received the best possible legal aid.
“Nobody wants to execute an innocent person,” he
said. “If one of (the 10 exonerees) slipped through, just think how horrible
that would be. It’s bad enough that somebody gets wrongfully convicted. It’s
possible to recreate a life after a wrongful conviction, but it is not possible
after a wrongful execution.”
Gov. Mary Fallin released a brief statement Tuesday
evening after the report was made public indicating that she’s not yet
well-versed on its contents.
“My office has not received a copy of the report,
but my staff will obtain a copy and review it,” she said.
The Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office requested a
moratorium in October 2015 once it learned about issues with a lethal-injection
drug used in the January execution of Charles Warner and the scheduled
execution of Richard Glossip. Those mistakes occurred after Oklahoma received
international attention for the 43-minute execution of Clayton Lockett in April
2014.
A multicounty grand jury issued a highly critical
report in May 2016 about the handling of Glossip’s and Warner’s cases by
multiple state agencies. The grand jury recommended that the Department of
Corrections overhaul its protocol yet again but did not recommend any
indictments.
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