Oklahoma is scheduled to execute 25 people in 25 months.
With all the news about the impact of hurricane Ian and the upcoming midterm elections, one troubling story has received much less attention. The state of Oklahoma is scheduled to execute 25 people over 25 months. This is especially disturbing in light of the work of organizations such as The Innocence Project and The Equal Justice Initiative. The United States continues to be a world leader in executions despite the fact that the death penalty has severe flaws which make it anything but a fair application of the ultimate form of punishment. Even in cases where guilt is not in doubt, the application of the death penalty is very arbitrary depending on factors such as where the crime takes place, the quality of legal representation, and the racial/social status of the accused and the victim. The result is that the vast majority of those put to death are poor people many of whom are mentally ill and who had inadequate or even incompetent legal representation. The death penalty has never been fairly and equitably applied. Any form of ultimate punishment needs to be ultimately fair if it is to be a form of justice.
Even more disturbing is the fact that hundreds of people accused of capital crimes have been exonerated through the development of forensic science including DNA. Most of these exonerations happen when organizations such as The Innocence Project and The Equal Justice Initiative step in to provide the research and legal expertise to take on the cases of people wrongfully found guilty and sentenced to death. Those who receive this kind of legal support are a small minority of people on the death rows in the majority of states where the death penalty is still legal. The videos posted below provide more insight into the injustice of the death penalty including the horrific fact that as many as one in ten on death rows are likely innocent of the crime that put them there. That in itself should be reason enough to do away with this ultimate form of punishment that can never be ultimately just The first video features Bryan Stevenson the founder of The Equal Justice Initiative and author of the popular book Just Mercy that was made into a movie. The second video features Sister Helen Prejean a well known death penalty opponent who wrote the book Dead Man Walking that was also made into a movie. I hope you will take the time to listen to both these people of faith and advocates for justice.
Especially for people of faith who believe that human beings are created in the image of God regardless of their social, economic, or racial status; the death penalty is inconsistent with both justice and mercy. The disturbing schedule of executions in Oklahoma is a symptom of the larger problem of the illusion that human forms of justice can ever be ultimately fair enough to take a human life.