The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals granted a motion filed by newly-elected Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond to slow down the state’s frenzied plan to execute seven men in seven months between February 16 and August 3, 2023. The new execution dates are scheduled for every 60 days between May 18 and June 6, 2024. Richard Glossip, whose February 16 date has been changed to May 18, his ninth execution date since he was sentenced to death, is scheduled to be the first.
But even that execution date is now in question because on January 26, Drummond announced he was appointing an independent counsel to review Glossip’s innocence claim. “Circumstances surrounding this case necessitate a thorough review,” he said in a news release, The Oklahoman reports. Former prosecutor and state lawmaker Rex Duncan has been tasked with reviewing the entire case, including the investigation, trial, sentencing and appeals process, according to the paper.
Drummond’s action undoes the macabre plans of former AG John J. O’Connor, who was defeated by Drummond in the Republican primary. He had announced last June that he was seeking dates for 25 men on death row, an execution a month, beginning in August 2022 and ending in December 2024. Those scheduled to be killed included individuals with claims of innocence, severe mental illness, and intellectual disability.
O’Connor, a self-proclaimed devout pro-life Catholic, had said he was acting “for the sake of the victims’ families, many of whom have waited for decades.” Despite troubling details about each case, the court seemed all too eager to comply.
In chillingly clinical detail, the court granted the request and outlined how the “execution schedule” will be “divided into [five] phases consisting of six inmates, each being set for execution at least four weeks apart,” with “an open month [to] separate each phase…to accommodate rescheduling if needed.”
But Drummond asked the CCA to reschedule the dates because “One aspect that has become clear over time is that the current pace of executions is unsustainable in the long run, as it is unduly burdening the (Department of Corrections) and its personnel,” The Journal Record reported.
The CCA said it will announce the execution dates for the remaining 25 men “at an appropriate time in the future.”
