Laura Porter, the executive director for the U.S. Campaign to End the Death Penalty, has seen support for the death penalty dropping steadily for decades. She said Gallup poll data shows less than half of adult respondents ages 18 to 54 support capital punishment.
“In this moment, we see a very clear disconnect between a handful of politicians pushing for more executions and the expansion of the death penalty and current public sentiment on the issue. We want to make sure policymakers know the country is moving away from the death penalty,” she said.
Across the country, statewide organizations are coming together to capitalize on the grassroots momentum. Earlier this month, the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty teamed with the national organization and other statewide groups to call for a federal end to capital punishment. Coalition president Elizabeth Overman said Oklahoma must be a leader.
“Oklahoma executes 3.101 persons per 100,000 people. Second is Texas. And Texas is a state of 31.13 million people. Oklahoma is a state of about 4.1 million people. We are, unfortunately, the dead center execution capital in the nation,” she said.
In addition to executing people at the highest rate in the country, Oklahoma has seen multiple high-profile death row cases make national headlines in recent years. Of the six clemencies granted to Oklahoma death row inmates since the 1970s, two have occurred in the last four years. Julius Jones was granted clemency in 2021, and Tremane Wood was granted clemency last month.
J’Shawna Smith is a program coordinator for the Julius Jones Institute. She said relying on the support of other organizations across the state and the country when advocating for Jones and Wood was invaluable, and made signing on to the U.S. Campaign to End the Death Penalty a simple decision.
“It takes us all, you know. And being able to partner with people all across the United States fighting for the same thing and understanding that we all may be able to bring something different to the table to be able to advocate for Julius' life, to advocate for Tremane's life,” she said. “If they need something here in Oklahoma, they know that they can contact us and call us.”
Oklahoma’s contributions to the national campaign come from beyond those who have personal ties to capital punishment and from those with a variety of perspectives on the issue. Brett Farley, the founding member of the Oklahoma chapter of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, said his organization has found success in working with people across the political spectrum.
“We were able to help construct a broad coalition in Oklahoma that includes Conservatives Concerned on one end, you have ACLU on the other. On many other issues, we're gonna have quite a bit of disagreement. But on this one there's a lot of parity,” he said.
He said arguments about the fiscal responsibility and morality of capital punishment align with conservative values. Despite the Republican Party’s historical support, that favorability is a mile wide and an inch deep.
“When you probe people and you press them and you present to them the evidence and the problems with the system, that support for the death penalty collapses very quickly,” he said.
This change in support is reflected in the introduction of Senate Bill 601, authored by two State Senate Republicans last year. The bill would create a new moratorium on the death penalty, both pausing all pending executions and preventing the state from scheduling new ones. The legislature will have the opportunity to give it full passage when it returns next year.
Additionally, Farley said another Oklahoma death penalty case that has received national attention may cause conservative lawmakers to consider a moratorium.
“With the Richard Glossip case, we believe he will be the 12th exoneree since 1976. Now, we've executed just over 120 people. So that's a 10% error margin,” he said. “The question that we ask most folks when we talk about this, and we ask legislators is — what error rate are you comfortable with? Because if your number is zero, then welcome to the club.”
Had he not been granted clemency, Tremane Wood would have been the last person executed in Oklahoma this year. The first Oklahoma death row inmate scheduled to be executed in 2026 is Kendrick Simpson, who is scheduled to be executed on February 12.
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