Last Wednesday, the Oklahoma House Criminal Justice and Corrections Committee cleared House Bill 3138, the Death Penalty Moratorium Act, making it eligible to be heard on the House floor, Oklahoma Watch reports.
The bill was introduced by Republican Rep. Kevin McDugle, who, although a death penalty supporter, has been troubled by several cases in which individuals were sentenced to death, most prominently Richard Glossip’s. “We cannot trust the system, period, and I hate it. They [district attorneys] are not willing to stand up and admit mistakes and fix them,” McDugle told the committee, according to Oklahoma Watch.
The bill calls for executions to be stayed until at least November 2029 and “vacates all execution dates currently in place,” although McDugle said he would be open to moving that deadline up to 2026, Oklahoma Watch reported. Legislative leaders and the governor would appoint five people to a Death Penalty Reform Task Force, which would meet by November 1 to “study and report on the progress of implementing reforms to the use of the death penalty in this state,” and submit its findings by November 2025. If the bill is signed into law, an emergency clause would allow it to take immediate effect.
