OKPOLICY.ORG
Oklahoma has executed more than 125 people since the modern era of capital punishment began in 1976, which is by far the nation’s highest per capita rate for executions. Given the prevalence of capital punishment in our state and the increasing scrutiny surrounding the process, the Oklahoma Policy Institute has published the Oklahoma Death Penalty Tracker. This online tool compiles information on all active death row cases since 2021, the end of the unofficial moratorium, including those in which the sentence has already been carried out or commuted. For each case, we note:
- The date and outcome of their Pardon and Parole Board hearing. Unless waived by the person sentenced to death, the board is required to make a non-binding recommendation to either grant or deny clemency before an execution can proceed.
- The governor’s ultimate decision. The governor is the final decision maker on clemency in death penalty cases and is not bound to follow the Pardon and Parole Board’s recommendations. Though the Board has recommended clemency in five cases since the end of the moratorium in 2021, the governor has intervened to stop an execution only once, in the case of Julius Jones.
- The major events in each case. This includes relevant decisions by the Oklahoma or U.S. Attorneys General, lawsuits, legal rulings related to competency, or other factors that might impact the eventual outcome of the case.
- The demographics of the people on death row. For each person, we note their race (as recorded by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections), gender (there is currently only one woman on death row in Oklahoma, Brenda Evers Andrew, and the U.S. Supreme Court recently ordered a new trial in her case), the jurisdiction where they were convicted, and their age at the time of conviction / number of years they’ve been held on death row.
We hope it will be a useful resource as Oklahomans and our elected officials continue to grapple with this important issue.
Note: Viewers on mobile devices should turn their device to landscape for best viewing experience.
Click here to access the tracker fullscreen in a new window.
A Recent Overview of the Death Penalty in Oklahoma
The death penalty has a tumultuous history in Oklahoma. The modern history of capital punishment in America began when the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed its legality in 1976. The following year, Oklahoma became the first state to approve lethal injection as an execution method; the state’s first execution in this modern era occurred in 1990. Oklahoma continued executions steadily afterward until the attempted execution of Richard Glossip in 2015. Glossip’s execution was halted just an hour before he was to be killed when the doctor in charge noticed that one of the drugs to be used did not match the state’s legal lethal injection protocol. Then-Gov. Mary Fallin issued an emergency stay of Glossip’s execution to determine whether the drugs planned for use were compliant with the execution protocol.
This incident led to a six-year, unofficial moratorium on the death penalty in Oklahoma as lawmakers, a grand jury, and a bipartisan state commission reviewed the state’s execution protocols. Their original goal was to find alternate execution methods, as they lacked reliable access to legally permissible drugs used to carry out lethal injections, but that unofficial moratorium ended in October 2021 when state officials eventually found a supplier.
However, concerns about the process have only grown since then, in large part due to high-profile cases where the state came close to executing potentially innocent people. In 2021, Gov. Stitt commuted the sentence of Julius Jones just hours before he was scheduled to die. His case had garnered national attention due to allegations of prosecutorial misconduct and evidence of his potential innocence. Glossip’s conviction was overturned in 2025 by the U.S. Supreme Court for similar reasons, leaving Oklahoma officials to determine how or if to retry the case. Both cases incited widespread public criticism of the death penalty process, including from dozens of Republican lawmakers who support the death penalty in principle. These incidents, where the state came within mere hours of executing potentially innocent people, have led some long-time advocates of the death penalty to reconsider their support for executions.
