Oklahoma Lawmakers Sue for Pardon and Parole Board Texts After Condemned Prisoner Denied Clemency
On March 14, 2023, a dustup over a contentious clemency request for condemned Oklahoma prisoner Richard Glossip spilled into state court, where a judge refused to dismiss a suit filed by two state lawmakers to force release of public records from hardline conservative district attorney (D.A.) Jason Hicks.
At issue were communications between the District 6 chief prosecutor and the state Pardon and Parole Board (PPB) before Glossip’s April 2023 clemency hearing. As PLN reported, PPB deadlocked on the request despite an extraordinary plea from state Attorney General Gentner Drummond (R), leaving Glossip facing a date with death until the Supreme Court of the U.S. granted a stay while it hears the prisoner’s appeal. [See: PLN, Mar. 2023, p.61.]
The two lawmakers, Reps. Justin Humphrey (R-Lane) and Kevin McDugle (R-Broken Arrow), wanted to know what PBB heard from Hicks, who opposed Glossip’s clemency. But the D.A. made them go to court to find out, claiming his texts to PBB members were personal and not public business—even though he requested and received an expense reimbursement to cover the mileage he drove to attend the hearing. Hicks tried to repay it after the lawsuit was filed, but the District Court for Stephens County then refused his motion to dismiss the suit. See: McDugle v. Hicks, Okla. Dist. (Stephens Cty.), Case No. CV-23-204R.
After that, Hicks released redacted copies of his communications—which showed he was not only critical of Glossip’s clemency petition but also of the lawmakers who supported it. Humphrey responded that “[c]itizens shouldn’t have to sue for access to public records,” accusing Hicks of “continu[ing] to withhold information by redacting the records he produced.” The lawmaker added that the “records show that some district attorneys are more interested in protecting their own than acknowledging how problems in the Glossip investigation undermined the integrity of his death sentence.”
Executions Continue
Meanwhile, the state wasted no time in carrying out its first prisoner execution of the year, administering a lethal injection on April 4, 2024, to Michael DeWayne Smith, 41, a member of an Oklahoma City street gang convicted of two fatal shootings in 2002. Victims Janet Moore and Sharath Babu Pulluru were shot during gang-related incidents, though neither was Smith’s original target, according to testimony at the 2003 trial. Despite denied requests for stays from state and federal courts, plus PBB’s 4-1 decision against his clemency, Smith maintained his innocence until his death.
The state’s next execution was carried out 84 days later on June 27, 2024, when prisoner Richard Norman Rojem Jr., 66, received another lethal injection for the 1984 murder and rape of his seven-year-old stepdaughter, Layla Dawn Cummings. Rojem also maintained his innocence through three separate condemnations—his first two death sentences were tossed for procedural errors—before exhausting appeals to his final 2007 sentence. He also told PBB that he did not kill the child, and his attorney argued in vain that the prosecution’s evidence was circumstantial.
Drummond asked the state Court of Criminal Appeal to schedule executions at least 90 days apart to reduce stress on DOC staffers involved. Though Judge Gary Lumpkin told Drummond to “suck it up” at a March 2024 hearing, the Court ultimately agreed to the scheduling request “unless circumstances dictate modification.”
The state has scheduled no more 2024 executions, despite an aggressive schedule set by the Court in 2021 that called for 58 to be conducted in three years. So far, only 13 of those dates with death have been kept.
Additional source: KOSU, Oklahoma Watch