The Oklahoma 25

Move over Texas

Oklahoma is one of only five states that has executed its citizens in 2022, but you might ask, why focus on Oklahoma when other states - Texas in particular, but also Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama - have executed more people in recent years?

In addition to the factory line of executions set up at the request of the Oklahoma Attorney General, John O’Connor, there are three main reasons:

1. From the end of August 2022 until the beginning of December 24, Oklahoma intends to kill 25 men. That will make the state the killing capital of the country. Already, per capita, Oklahoma executes more of its citizens than any other state.
2. Oklahoma has a particularly gruesome recent history of botching executions. It became so bad that in 2015, the state’s governor, Mary Fallin (who earned the nickname ‘Bloody Mary’), was forced to declare a moratorium after it became public that the Department of Corrections almost used the wrong drugs in its abortive attempt to execute Richard Glossip. It later came to light that they had already used the wrong drugs in an earlier execution, with horrible results.
3. In 2017, the bipartisan Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission released a report that is an indictment of capital punishment in Oklahoma and throughout the United States. The report contained 46 recommendations the Commission deemed necessary to create a “fair” death penalty. Oklahoma hasn’t implemented a single one of those recommendations. We have created a guide to the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission’s Report.

We’re writing about the Oklahoma executions, and a lot more, in our monthly newsletter, Death Penalty Discourse. If you’re not on our mailing list, please sign up.

On this page, we’ll provide resources and detailed write-ups about the men who Oklahoma will put to death, for those of you wishing to know more.