‘Nonstop executions’ traumatized corrections staff, former DOC directors say

“Reports from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary describe near-constant mock executions being conducted within earshot of prisoners’ cells, staff offices, and visiting rooms,” in response to a letter to state Attorney General Gentner Drummond. “Correctional staff have communicated privately with visiting defense mental health experts about the distress they are experiencing due to the nonstop executions.”

Among these signing the letter had been former DOC Directors Joe M. Allbaugh and Justin Jones and former state penitentiary Warden Dan Reynolds. The letter, dated Jan. 13, requested Drummond to petition courts for a revised execution schedule “spacing them a minimum of several months apart to ensure the safety and well-being of the state’s correctional employees.”

On Jan. 17, Drummond requested that seven impending executions every be spaced aside by 60 days. The state Court of Criminal Appeals consented, resetting the tempo of 25 executions in 29 months it authorized in 2022.

“That relentless pace of executions means the prison never really returns to normal operations after the emotional and logistical upheaval of an execution,” the former DOC officers wrote within the letter, obtained by Oklahoma Watch by the state’s Open Records Act.

Drummond took workplace on Jan. 9 and was in McAlester three days later to fulfill with corrections employees and witness the execution of Scott James Eizember, who was convicted for the 2003 murders of A.J. Cantrell and Patsy Cantrell in Creek County.

“I was there with them at 6:45 a.m. when they started their morning and stayed with them until they did their postmortem exit brief, with the mental health professionals there to provide services,” Drummond stated in an interview with Oklahoma Watch.

Just because the penitentiary employees had been concluding one execution, they started preparation for the execution of Richard Eugene Glossip, which had been scheduled for Thursday.

“As I was finishing my interviews with certain personnel, they said, ‘You know, Mr. Drummond, can we break? I need to grab a quick sandwich ’cause I start on Glossip at (1 p.m.),’” Drummond stated. “And I thought, man, that’s unhealthy. And so I started asking more questions, and it’s just too onerous.”

Drummond stated he filed the movement to delay after which area out executions solely after speaking with victims’ households.

“I’ve talked to every family that was affected. There was some frustration, but there was a lot of awareness of the demands on DOC. And so, in the end, every family member agreed. And we proceeded with that,” he stated.

The letter from former corrections officers cited statistics exhibiting an elevated danger of suicide, publish traumatic stress dysfunction and substance abuse for individuals who perform executions.

“There are significant costs with these kinds of compressed time period executions,” Ngozi Ndulue, deputy director of the Death Penalty Information Center, stated in an interview with Oklahoma Watch final fall. “There are financial costs, but there are also emotional costs, which almost seems to downplay it a little bit.”

Oklahoma and Texas every carried out 5 executions in 2022, accounting for 56% of all executions nationally, in response to the Death Penalty Information Center’s annual report.

The state had resumed executions in October 2021 following a seven-year moratorium triggered by the botched executions of Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner.

In 2014, Lockett writhed and groaned throughout his execution when the state used the surgical sedative midazolam for the primary time.

Warner’s execution, which had been scheduled for a similar evening, was postponed. Then a health worker’s report confirmed that the state used the incorrect drug — potassium acetate as a substitute of potassium chloride — in 2015 to cease Warner’s coronary heart.

The letter to Drummond emphasised the potential hurt of errors on these finishing up an execution.

“If even a routine execution can inflict lasting harm on corrections staff, the traumatic impact of a botched execution is exponentially worse,” the letter says. “Oklahoma has experienced this harm on multiple occasions and should not needlessly place its hardworking correctional staff at risk of another such mistake.”

Oklahoma Watch employees author Paul Monies contributed to this story.

October 2021 video: Former DOC Director Scott Crow talks about execution of John Marion Grant