“This was the week in which America’s ailing death penalty bit back.”
Ed Pilkington wrote that sentence in Sunday’s Guardian in a piece that pointed out the nation’s continuing walk away from capital punishment and the questions raised by five executions carried out in six days, one of them in Oklahoma.
Nationally, 21 death sentences were meted out in 2023, less than 7% of 1996’s 315. Only 10 states carried out an execution in the past decade, though South Carolina broke its 13-year hiatus last week. Twenty-nine states have abolished the death penalty or paused executions by executive action.
That’s in keeping with a shift in Americans’ views of the death penalty. A Gallup poll revealed that for the first time, more Americans (50%) said they believe the death penalty is administered unfairly than fairly (47%).
Gallup also found that 53% of Americans favor capital punishment, the lowest support since 1972.
Emmanuel Littlejohn, 52, was executed by Oklahoma on Thursday for the 1992 murder of a convenience store owner, Kenneth Meers. Littlejohn confessed that he had been part of the robbery, but insisted that he had not pulled the trigger. Oklahoma’s Pardon and Parole Board recommended clemency. Gov. Kevin Stitt didn’t follow the recommendation.
Anti-death-penalty advocates point to a massive shift in the judiciary. Donald Trump appointed more than 200 federal judges and three highly conservative justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. That, death penalty opponents say, removed the guardrails.
Pilkington wrote:
“There’s been a radical shift in the legal culture as it relates to the death penalty in the past six years,” said Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, who perhaps more than anyone has alerted Americans to the inequities of death row. “The refs are gone, there is no more oversight.”
The result, Stevenson said, was that the rump of largely southern states still wedded to capital punishment are now unbound. “Without safeguards, without accountability, the states have leeway to do pretty much what they want,” he said.
More worth reading:
Tulsan a Major Funder of Florida Abortion Rights Initiative
According to campaign finance reports, Tulsa philanthropist Lynne Schusterman, who contributed at least $4.25 million to last year’s successful abortion rights ballot initiative in Ohio, is also one of the largest donors to a similar undertaking in Florida. [Tulsa World]
Walters Mum on Bible Money Source
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters said he would ask lawmakers for $3 million next year to cover the costs, on top of the $3 million he’s already set aside for the purchases. But there was no specific line item for spending on Bibles in this year’s agency budget approved by the Legislature. [The Oklahoman]
Wave of Hoax Shooting Threats Is Jolting Schools
Oklahoma City police said they have looked into 65 reports of threats to metro-area schools since the school year began, many of them rumors or widely circulating social media posts. Each one requires its own thorough inquiry to determine whether schools are in real danger. [WSJ]
Language company Preply ranked Oklahoma City the 10th friendliest in the nation in its 2024 study.
Ciao for now,
Ted Streuli
Executive Director, Oklahoma Watch
tstreuli@oklahomawatch.org
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