Quotes of the Day

“This continuing litany of errors makes you question whether the Department of Corrections is uniquely incompetent or whether that incompetence pervades the administration of capital punishment in Oklahoma. Warner’s last words were that his body was on fire. That suggests that the midazolam did not work in rendering him insensate and that the drug that was used for the killing produced intense pain. Now we know the wrong drug was used and Department of Corrections officials either didn’t know or didn’t care.”

– Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, regarding Thursday’s revelation that the January execution of Charles Warner was carried out with the wrong drug (Source)

“I pulled my money out, in a rubber band. He (the officer) said, ‘How much money is that?’ I said, ‘About 12,000 dollars.’ He said, ‘That’s a lot of money.’ I said ‘Okay, I’m going to Las Vegas to gamble. I can’t go there with a little bit of money because I won’t last long.’ He said, ‘Well, it’s got a rubber band on it.’ I said, ‘Yeah?’ He said, ‘Well, drug dealers use rubber bands.’”

– Robert B. Mack, describing how a state Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs officer confiscated cash and phones from himself and a friend en route to Las Vegas in June after they were pulled over for speeding (Source)

“You’re close to the bottom of the basement, I am sorry to say, because there is no content in them. These are pious statements of academic goals. These are not standards. A standard is a criterion by which you grade something.”

-Sandra Stotsky, a former Massachusetts Department of Education official who is one of three experts brought in to help Oklahoma create new academic standards. Stotsky said Oklahoma’s current draft standards provide no guidance to teachers (Source).

“Oklahoma’s state court costs have strayed far afield from punishing bad behavior and dissuading unlawful conduct. Instead, collection of court costs has become an unrealistic, self-defeating racket that needlessly straps many offenders with overwhelming debt. They fall behind on their court costs and end up in jail, unable to pay other bills, hold a job or take care of their families.”

-Tulsa World Editorial Board (Source)

“Our kids are locked into their neighborhoods. They can’t get out of there to go to a charter school, they can’t get out of there to go to a job, they can’t get out. I can’t imagine any family saying to their two or three high school children, ‘yes I can find a way to get each of you $10 a month to ride the bus.'”

-Oklahoma City school board member Phil Horning, speaking against a plan by the Central Oklahoma Transportation and Parking Authority to charge middle school and high school students $10 a month for a bus pass (Source)

“The storm clouds gathering on state government’s budgetary horizon are ominous. For the fourth consecutive month – and fifth time in six months – state revenue collections in August were less than the year before. Oklahoma’s unemployment rate is but a half percentage point below the national rate – after eight years of being significantly lower. Chesapeake Energy this week announced 740 layoffs – 15 percent of its workforce – including 562 in Oklahoma City. A Dallas company’s purchase of the Williams Cos. casts doubt on the fate of 1,000 Tulsa workers. State government’s fiscal experts know what’s coming – a collective migraine not experienced since the last great oil bust in the early 1980s.”

– Arnold Hamilton, Editor of the Oklahoma Observer, writing in the Journal Record (Source)

“I’m sitting there watching TV trying to keep up with the news and find out what’s going on.”

– Richard Glossip, on waiting to be executed before being told his had received his fourth stay of execution yesterday. Gov. Fallin issued a 37-day stay because Oklahoma didn’t have the right drugs to carry out the execution (Source)

“Despite our current budget issues, we need to increase corrections pay immediately. Our corrections officer pay is one of the lowest in the nation. The low pay coupled with the inherent danger that comes with the job pushes people away from a career in corrections and new recruits drop out quickly. In fact, we’re losing upwards of 50 percent of new recruits in less than a year due to workplace violence.”

-Rep. Bobby Cleveland, R-Slaughterville (Source)

“The teacher said three or four of the girls freaked out and ran down the hall, thinking the walls were going to come down. It was pretty major, for Okies.”

-Crescent Public Schools Superintendent Mickey Hart, speaking about a July earthquake that forced the district to evacuate a building after finding infrastructure damage to the practice gymnasium walls (Source)

“When you step back and look at the big picture, it’s a horrendous picture, and it has got to change. It’s all hands on deck, I mean from the governor to our Legislature. These people and these families are in utter despair. It’s terrible economic practice, and we have got to have the leadership from our elected officials who need to say in effect — no more.”

-Mike Brose, executive director of Mental Health Association Oklahoma, speaking about how Oklahoma is near the bottom in the nation for mental health funding, despite having the second-highest rate of adults with serious mental illness in the nation (Source)