We attach an urgent action concerning the death penalty in Oklahoma
November 2024
DEATH PENALTY ACTION FOR NOVEMBER, 2024
This action is part of our continuing campaign calling on the Governor of Oklahoma to issue a moratorium on all executions, and ultimately to move towards the permanent abolition of the death penalty in the state. Letters (preferably) or emails should be sent to Governor Stitt, focusing in particular on the history of racial discrimination within the State and how this has impacted on Oklahoma’s application of the death penalty.
Contact details:
The Honorable J Kevin Stitt
Governor of the State of Oklahoma
Oklahoma State Capitol
2300 N. Lincoln Blvd; Suite212
Oklahoma City
OK 73105
USA.
Emails can be tried at: https://oklahoma.gov/governor/contact/general-information/contact-the-governor.html which gives access to a form.
Please take this action before the end of November.
Racial Discrimination/Bias in the Application of the Death Penalty in the State of Oklahoma
In 2017 the Death Penalty Review Commission concluded the system in Oklahoma was ‘broken’ and unanimously recommended a moratorium on executions ‘until significant reforms were accomplished’. They also questioned ‘whether the death penalty could be administered in a way that ensured no innocent person was put to death. They made 47 recommendations but it is understood – over 6 years later – none have been implemented.
In 2022 the report Deeply Rooted: How Racial History informs Oklahoma’s Death Penalty’ by Dr Crutcher, Founder and Executive Director of the Terence Crutcher Foundation, was issued – and updated in September 2024.
The report places Oklahoma’s death penalty in its historical context of lynchings and mass violence against Black Oklahomans and the forced migration of Native Americans. It documents the historical role that race has played in the State’s death penalty and details the pervasive impact that racial discrimination continues to have in the administration of capital punishment.
The report ties Oklahoma’s use of the death penalty to its troubled history of racial violence and segregation. It observed that Oklahoma was at an inflection point in its administration of the death penalty and argued that, if the State was to establish a fair and humane system of justice, it was crucial to acknowledge and redress the effects of the Jim Crow laws and racial violence that persist into the present day.
Racial discrimination, especially the race of the victim, continues to infect all aspects of the death penalty in Oklahoma. A study of homicides in the state between 1990 and 2012 found that the odds a person charged with killing a white female victim would be sentenced to death were 10 times greater than if the victim was a minority male. Of the 25 executions scheduled between August 2022 and December 2024, 68% involve white victims. Data throughout the report suggest that valuing white victims more than others has resulted in disproportionate punishment for Black defendants who murder white people.
An examination of the age and race of the men scheduled for execution reflects the bias that Black youth are perceived as older and less innocent than white youth. Seven of the 10 Black men set for execution were 25 years old or younger at the time of the crime. By contrast, only one of the 13 white men set for execution was 25 or younger at the time of his crime. Three of the Black men were 20 or younger and one of them, Alfred Mitchell, was only two weeks past his 18th birthday.
Of the 142 people in the U.S. who have been removed from death row because of intellectual disability (following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that their executions are barred), the majority (83%) have been people of colour. This suggests that people of colour, especially Black people, with intellectual disability are at a greater risk of being subjected to capital punishment. Oklahoma has limited the ability for people on death row to seek relief based on intellectual disability. As the report notes, Michael Smith, a Black man, had a documented, lifelong intellectual disability[i]. Despite his medical diagnosis, Oklahoma denied Mr. Smith a hearing on his intellectual disability.
At least five cases of those scheduled for execution in Oklahoma may have involved official misconduct, including Clarence Goode, a Black and Muscogee man set to be executed on August 8, 2024, (but see below) who was convicted after the testimony of a detective who later served time in federal prison for misconduct in other cases. Nationwide, nearly 80% of wrongful capital convictions of Black people involve official misconduct by police, prosecutors, or other government officials.
Native American Sovereignty
The report states that Oklahoma has a history of defying U.S. Supreme Court decisions that would provide some measure of racial justice. For example, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals refused to apply McGirt v. Oklahoma (holding that the State lacked jurisdiction to prosecute crimes committed by or against Native American people on tribal lands)
In 2020 the US Supreme Court recognised that Oklahoma has continually prosecuted criminal cases in violation of long-standing treaties with Native American tribes. At least 3 Native Americans have been executed in violation of tribal sovereignty, and at least 4 people remain on death row despite these violations.
Thirty-seven Native American men and women have been sentenced to death in Oklahoma, more than in any other state. Two people currently scheduled for execution – Clarence Goode, Jr[ii] and Alfred Mitchell[iii] are Native American.
Sources: Death Penalty Information Centre
[i] my update: executed on 4th April 2024 – despite a 4 to 1 recommendation for clemency from the Pardon and Parole Board
[ii] my update: execution stayed 8th August 2024 pending new date
[iii] my Update: execution stayed 3rd October 2024 pending new date
Amnesty in Salisbury & South Wiltshire 