State representative Mauree Turner has filed a house joint resolution directing the Secretary of State to refer to the people for their approval to prohibit the use of the death penalty in criminal cases. The bill was introduced on  Jan. 19 with the first reading set to take place in the House on Feb. 7.

Legalization of the current death penalty was ratified in the state in 1977 by the Oklahoma Legislature. Oklahoma was the first state and jurisdiction to adopt lethal injection as its method of execution. 114 inmates have been executed in the state by lethal injection. 

“The death penalty is a big issue,” Turner said in a statement on Twitter. “One where we can’t just leave it to the folks in the OK legislature to understand everyone’s shared lived experience, especially when it comes to justice and community.”

Today I published a piece of legislation that creates a state question & asks every Oklahoma voter what they think about the Death Penalty.

We’ve seen a very large groundswell to not only put an end to mass incarceration but also to abolish the death penalty in Oklahoma. https://t.co/rN4IvdfzqO

— Mauree Turner | They / Them (Taylor’s Version) (@MaureeTurnerOK) January 20, 2022

Oklahoma also became the first U.S. state to use pentobarbital (a controlled substance used as a sedative and anticonvulsant) in the execution of John David Duty on Dec. 16, 2010. 

Pentobarbital became commonly used in lethal executions after a shortage of sodium thiopental, another lethal drug, in 2011. Although the use of pentobarbital has been upheld in the Supreme Court, the administration of the drug has been controversial among anti-death penalty groups citing that the drug is “inhumane” given the history of complicated executions from the drug. 

Convicted and sentenced to death for murder, Michael Lee Wilson was executed in the state on Jan. 9, 2015, using a combination of pentobarbital, potassium chloride and vecuronium bromide. Within 20 seconds of the drugs being administered, Wilson’s final words were “I feel my whole body burning.”   

“Some people are having what appears to be reactions from those drugs. It hasn’t been just as simple as the person goes to sleep,” former sheriff’s deputy and forensic science teacher Courtney Scott said. “They’re going to sleep without any evidence of suffering, struggling or dying. Because it is eliciting a physical response, it is being deemed inhumane.” 

The proposed bill comes months after the botched execution of John Marion Grant on Oct. 28, 2021. Grant was observed vomiting and convulsing after being administered the sedative midazolam. Legal challenges against using the drug have been argued since 2015, notably in Glossip v. Gross which the Supreme Court held 5-4 that administering midazolam did not constitute cruel and unusual punishment. 

If passed, the bill would amend enactments in the Oklahoma Constitution related to the death penalty and deem the use of as cruel or unusual punishment.

“It comes down to what the people of Oklahoma feel is justice for the victims who were lost,” Scott said. “Is allowing this person to remain in prison for the rest of their life justice for taking another person’s life or is their debt the death penalty?”