Oklahoma is ready to leave the death penalty in the past 

Oklahoma may hold the distinction for having highest number of executions per capita in the U.S. and ranks second to Texas for the number of executions since 1976. But these statistics paint an incomplete picture of the state’s capital punishment system today.

The reality is Oklahoma’s death penalty is losing legitimacy in the public’s mind and — in the not too distant future — it may end. The state’s four executions last year involved death sentences handed down decades earlier.

Significantly, not a single jury in Oklahoma has issued a new death sentence in the past three years, which is quite a statement given the state’s history. When combined with recent polling that showed 77-percent of Oklahomans support a halt to executions to ensure the process is accurate and fair, it is clear that public opinion in the Sooner State is shifting on the use of capital punishment.

Oklahoma’s use of the death penalty is responsible for bringing the system’s many shortcomings to light, such as the possibility of executing an innocent person. The case of Richard Glossip has made national headlines with the U.S. Supreme Court recently granting him a new trial after decades trying to prove his innocence. The case of Tremane Wood is similar in that he, too, never murdered anyone, but is scheduled for execution by the state of Oklahoma sometime this calendar year. 

Nationally, 200 people have been wrongly convicted and sentenced to death, and it has happened 11 times in Oklahoma that we know of. This is prompting many pro-life conservatives, like me, to question whether we can support a system that risks innocent life.

The state of affairs has compelled two Oklahoma Republican state lawmakers to sponsor Senate Bill 601, which calls for a moratorium on the death penalty.

Many conservatives are also rethinking the death penalty based on fiscal responsibility. Studies across the country have shown that it costs millions of dollars more than life without the chance of release and Oklahoma studies have found exactly the same thing.

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