Why some Republicans in Oklahoma want to pause executions

OKLAHOMA CITY — The state of Oklahoma has executed 122 people since 1976, the highest number of executions per capita in the country. Now, two Republican lawmakers — long supporters of the death penalty — are looking to temporarily halt executions in the state.

State Reps. Kevin McDugle and Justin J.J. Humphrey say people on death row have been subject to system-wide failures in the Oklahoma justice system, from ineffective defense counsel to prosecutorial overreach. The Republicans are calling for a pause to all executions to reexamine all 37 pending death row cases in Oklahoma.

McDugle, who represents Broken Arrow in northeast Oklahoma, said he has long been an advocate of the death penalty for whom he describes as the “worst offenders.” But he’s currently lost faith in the process to determine who’s deserving of that fate in his home state.

“Right now I don’t believe in the death penalty in Oklahoma. I don’t,” McDugle told the PBS NewsHour. “That’s why we are trying to fix it because if we can’t fix it to where we can execute those who deserve to be executed and quit executing those who don’t deserve to be executed … then we need to get rid of it.”

Oklahoma Rep. J.J. Humphrey speaks at an Oct. 19 news conference in support of clemency for death-row prisoner Phillip Hancock. Photo by Adam Kemp/PBS NewsHour

Oklahoma and Texas accounted for more than half of all executions in the United States last year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

The two representatives say they’re part of a growing concern among Oklahoma conservative lawmakers about the state’s justice system. They also said they’re aware of the optics; speaking up for those convicted and sentenced to death isn’t popular and makes them look like they are “soft” on crime. Their calls for a moratorium have yet to be heeded in the state Legislature, where Republicans hold a supermajority.

“If you had told me that I would be standing up here advocating and asking the governor and asking the DA to set these things aside, I wouldn’t have believed you,” said Humphrey, who represents Lane in southeast Oklahoma. “But when you see what I have seen, you have no choice. It’s high time Oklahoma take a look at these problems and correct it.”

The state put a pause on executions in 2017, after two high-profile botched executions. The state resumed executions in 2021. McDugle and Humphrey have in recent weeks rallied around the case of Phillip Hancock, who is scheduled to be put to death on Nov. 30 for the murders of Robert Jett, Jr., 37, and James Lynch, 57. Hancock has admitted to shooting and killing two men during a 2001 altercation at a southwest Oklahoma City home.

The two state reps not only believe Hancock was acting in self-defense when he fatally shot Jett and Lynch, but claim Hancock had ineffective defense counsel and was subjected to “extreme” prosecutorial overreach from the Oklahoma County district attorney at the time, which led to Hancock’s death row sentence in 2004.

Bob Macy, the district attorney at the time, ranked No. 2 in a 2016 Harvard Law study on “America’s Top Five Deadliest Prosecutors.” According to the study, Macy, who died in 2011, sent more people to death row than any other individual district attorney in the United States.

“We have cases like this where people in the past would do anything to get a conviction,” McDugle said. “The state should have never sought the death penalty in this case. And yet here we are, getting ready to put another man to death undeservingly.”

Both lawmakers asked the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board to recommend clemency for Hancock. They also asked state Gov. Kevin Stitt, also a Republican, to commute the death sentence. They’ve called for current Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Behenna and state Attorney General Gentner Drummond to review the evidence in Hancock’s case.

Stitt’s office did not respond to a request for comment about the request for clemency for Hancock and the call for a moratorium from members of his party.

Hancock’s attorneys filed a lawsuit in federal court earlier this month, requesting the release of physical evidence for DNA testing to support his self-defense claim. Evidence collected at the scene, like victims’ clothing, a wallet, and a letter could corroborate Hancock’s claim, one forensic scientist argued in a court filing supporting the lawsuit. A district judge denied that claim, along with other efforts to test evidence. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals also upheld the judge’s decision.

Why lawmakers are citing this one death row case

Andy Lester, attorney and former U.S. magistrate judge, testifies at an interim hearing on the death penalty at the Oklahoma Capitol on Oct. 5. Photo by Doug Hoke/The Oklahoman/USA Today Network

Hancock, now 59 and on death row, asserts that the Oklahoma County jury erred in convicting him for the murders of Robert Jett and James Lynch, ultimately sentencing him to death by lethal injection. During the 2004 murder trial, Hancock’s defense team argued that he acted in self-defense, claiming that he was the victim of an unprovoked attack.

Jurors sided with the prosecution, contending that Hancock shot one of the men as he tried to escape and taunted the other victim between gunshots.

Hancock’s current attorney, Shawn Nolan, said Hancock was lured to the house to pick up his girlfriend at the time, Kathy Quick. Included in Nolan’s latest push for clemency is a written declaration from Quick, who said she “impulsively” asked Jett if she could pay him a few hundred dollars to “get Phil off my back.”

Nolan also said the two lawyers who represented Hancock during the original murder trial were grappling with addiction.

Nolan argues that Hancock’s trial counsel failed to thoroughly investigate and challenge the prosecution’s version of events. Efforts to overturn his conviction through the appeals process have been unsuccessful.

Oklahoma County District Judge Cindy Truong declined Hancock’s request for new DNA testing last year, insisting that favorable results wouldn’t exonerate him. Attorney General Gentner Drummond issued a statement echoing a similar point, saying, “No amount of DNA evidence can prove Hancock’s indefensible claim of self-defense.” The attorney general highlighted witness testimony that suggests Hancock taunted and pursued one of the victims before the fatal shootings.

Hancock’s legal team asked the state’s Pardon and Parole Board to grant clemency, which would allow the governor to commute the sentence. A hearing is scheduled for Nov. 8.

The governor must obtain a favorable recommendation from the parole board to grant clemency. Stitt has granted such a reprieve only once during his tenure, commuting Julius Jones’ death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

McDugle said death row cases like Hancock’s underscore how the state does not provide sufficient opportunities for death row prisoners to present their claims of innocence.

“This case exemplifies the problems that led to the death penalty review commission and moratorium,” McDugle said. “Hancock’s case and a bunch of these cases come from an era where Oklahoma was getting it wrong. Now it’s up to us to fix it.”

Oklahoma has passed a death penalty moratorium before

Oklahoma imposed a six-year halt to executions after the 2014 botched execution of Clayton Lockett and a drug mix-up that resulted in the incorrect lethal injection of Charles Warner in 2015.

In 2017, an independent, bipartisan review committee in Oklahoma unanimously recommended a moratorium until more than 40 recommendations could be put in place to address issues of forensics, law enforcement techniques, death penalty eligibility and the execution process itself.

Since the recommendations were made, nearly none of them were implemented, said Andy Lester, a former federal magistrate who co-chaired the independent Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission in 2017.

“Whether you support capital punishment or oppose it, one thing is clear, from start to finish the Oklahoma capital punishment system is fundamentally broken,” Lester said at a meeting earlier this month on death penalty cases in Oklahoma.

When Oklahoma lifted the moratorium in 2021, the state Department of Corrections initiated an aggressive timetable to carry out 25 executions in under two years, equating to almost one execution per month. The state later relented on the pace of executions after former corrections employees wrote a letter to express concerns that the demanding schedule would cause trauma to staff and increase the risk of errors.

Oklahoma has executed 10 people in the past two years. If Hancock’s prospects don’t change, he will become No. 11 and the last scheduled execution for 2023.

A growing concern over the death penalty

Buttons are given out at a September meeting held by anti-death penalty advocates at First Unitarian Church in Oklahoma City. Photo by Nathan J. Fish/The Oklahoman/USA Today Network

Before the Hancock case, McDugle was involved with another claim of innocence from a death row prisoner that raised questions over the state’s practice of capital punishment.

Richard Glossip has been scheduled to be executed in Oklahoma nine times since 2015. The courts delayed his execution each time so that legal challenges could be considered. Now, the Supreme Court is weighing whether to throw out Glossip’s 2004 murder conviction and grant him a new trial. Glossip has maintained his innocence, which led McDugle to call for an independent review of his case in 2021. Attorney General Drummond also appointed a special counsel earlier this year to conduct a second review.

McDugle said nearly a dozen men have been exonerated from Oklahoma’s death row in the past few decades, including the exoneration of Glynn Simmons in September after more than 48 years on death row.

Brett Farley, who serves as the executive director for Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, helped launch a group called Oklahoma Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty in November. Farley said the support from conservative lawmakers in the state to reexamine Glossip’s case was unprecedented.

“Forty Republican lawmakers asked the state to take a second look,” Farley said. “That’s unheard of, and I believe it’s because we pride ourselves as Americans on due process.”

Adam Luck, a former chair of the state Pardon and Parole Board and now a representative for the group of Oklahoma conservative lawmakers and faith leaders, said he was confronted with enough evidence during his time as chair to make him doubt nearly all death penalty cases in Oklahoma. The state should stop all executions, at least temporarily, he said.

“You have to answer the question, ‘Do you have confidence in how the state of Oklahoma is doing that right now?” Luck said. “We aren’t asking people to support ending the death penalty in Oklahoma, but we are asking that we do it the right way.”