compiled by Kevin Acers

The Oklahoma Department of Corrections has documented a total of 126 prisoners executed in our state’s history.

The death penalty in Oklahoma, like other US states, usually is discussed in terms of two phases: pre-1972 (when the US Supreme Court ruled the states’ death penalty laws were unconstitutional, putting an end to executions) and post-1977 (when the US Supreme Court ruled that newly re-written state death penalty laws were once again constitutional, opening the door for executions to resume).

Eighty-three men were executed in Oklahoma between statehood and 1972, the first in 1915 and the last in 1966. Methods of execution included electrocution (82) and hanging (for one federal prisoner). These executions were primarily for the crime of murder; however, they also included death sentences imposed for kidnapping, rape, and armed robbery. The last electrocution took place in 1966. Nearly a quarter of a century would pass before the state executed another prisoner.

In 1977 the Oklahoma Legislature enacted the current death penalty law, following constitutional guidelines set forth by the US Supreme Court. This law calls for executions to be carried out by lethal injection, a method of execution that was devised with input from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center as an alternative to making costly repairs to the state’s mothballed electric chair. Oklahoma became the first jurisdiction in the world to pass a death penalty law which provided for lethal injection; Texas followed suit immediately, passing their own lethal injection law the very next day. Other jurisdictions quickly followed suit.

While capital punishment had been back on the books in Oklahoma since 1977, there were no prisoners executed until a dozen years later. The first execution in the "modern era" of capital punishment in Oklahoma was that of Charles Coleman on September 10, 1990. They were all convicted of first degree murder.

CASES OF INTEREST
Charles Coleman: This was a widely publicized case, being the first execution to take place in Oklahoma in more than 20 years. Two professors from the University of Oklahoma and one from the University of Cincinnati studied the incidents of homicide in the time period immediately following this execution. They found that, far from having a deterrent effect, there was a significant increase in the number of homicides committed against strangers (when the killers did not know their victims). Their findings were published in the journal of the American Society of Criminology (Deterrence or Brutalization? An Impact Assessment of Oklahoma’s Return to Capital Punishment, 1994).

Robyn Parks: Henry Bellmon was nearing the end of his second term as Oklahoma’s governor when Parks’ execution date was set. Bellmon--who during his first term as governor in the 1960s granted clemency to a death row inmate for the only time in state history--believed that Parks’ case deserved clemency. Under state law, the governor can grant clemency only if the Pardon and Parole Board first recommends that he do so. Bellmon urged the Board to do so, but they did not. Parks was executed shortly after Bellmon’s successor, Governor David Walters, took office.

Robert Brecheen: Robert Brecheen decided to pre-empt his execution by taking his own life. A few hours before he was to be executed, he intentionally overdosed on pain medication, which he some-how obtained (either from sympathetic guards or fellow inmates). He was rushed to a nearby hospital. The physician who was to take part in his execution was reportedly en route to the penitentiary when he heard news of the suicide attempt on his car radio. He rushed to the hospital and personally took part in the resuscitation effort. After Brecheen’s stomach was pumped and he was semi-conscious, he was taken back to the penitentiary. Although barely coherent, the warden declared him competent for execution. He was then taken to the death chamber and executed a few hours behind schedule under the same doctor’s supervision. As a result of this incident, new, stricter rules have been imposed on prisoners during the last 60 days prior to their scheduled execution. This includes a prohibition of prescription medications and complete isolation from other inmates 24 hours a day.

Tuan Nguyen: A Vietnamese refugee who came to this country as a teenager, Tuan Nguyen was the only prisoner in the world known to be executed on December 10, 1998, Human Rights Day and the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The execution was marked by pro-tests at US embassies throughout Europe. Despite strong evidence of Ngyuen being severely mentally ill, and possibly not understanding what was happening to him, he was found competent by the prison warden and executed as scheduled.

John Castro, Sr.: During his final words in the moments before his execution, Castro told the witnesses of his desire for his 16-year-old son to be with him when he died. He told the witnesses that the warden had denied his request, saying that witnessing an execution at age 16 would be too traumatic. Castro expressed his dismay that, in light of that reasoning, fellow death row inmate Sean Sellers was scheduled for execution for crimes he committed when he was a 16-year-old boy. As the poison entered his veins, Castro’s last words were, “I feel it.”

Sean Sellers: In violation of international standards, Oklahoma executed a juvenile offender. Sean Sellers was sentenced to death for killing his parents at age 16. He was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder

(Multiple Personalities), and a federal appeals court found the scientific evidence of this mental illness being at the root of his crimes to be “irrefutable,” yet not grounds for their overturning his sentence. The execution of juvenile offenders is virtually unheard of outside the United States. It was the first and only time for a 16-year-old offender to be executed in this country in forty years. Sean Sellers’ case gained national attention, partly because of his age, and partly because of his involvement with Satanism at the time of the crimes. He became a Christian while in prison, as well as an accomplished artist and prolific writer. He wrote to troubled teens and their parents in an effort to help prevent what he saw as other potential tragedies similar to his own.

Thomas Grasso, Scott Carpenter, Michael Long, Stephen Wood, Ronald Fluke, Earl Frederick, Sr., and Harold McElmurray hastened their own deaths by dropping their appeals. Oklahoma has an unusually high rate of these consensual executions. This may be due to the extreme conditions in H-Unit, the super-maximum security, underground building where all of Oklahoma’s male death row inmates are held. Amnesty International has condemned the structure as constituting cruel, inhuman or degrading conditions in violation of international standards for the treatment of prisoners. They are held 23-24 hours per day in small, windowless cells with no fresh air ventilation. With the exception of extremely mentally ill prisoners, they are held two prisoners to a cell. There are no work or education programs, and they are not allowed admission into the prison’s Special Care Unit for prisoners with severe mental illness.

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