Oklahoma County was once among the top 2 percent of counties nationwide that accounted for 56 percent of the people sitting on death row as of 2012, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Between 1980 and 2001, Oklahoma County District Attorney Robert Macy won 54 death penalty convictions, just over two per year during the 21-year period. But according to data analyzed by the Marshall Project, Oklahoma County has only sent three people to death row in the past six years.
So what happened?
Former Oklahoma City criminal defense attorney Doug Parr says Oklahoma County prosecutors are far more reluctant to issue death sentences after a 2001 investigation into police chemist Joyce Gilchrist after her scientific analysis resulted in an innocent man spent 15 years in prison for a faulty rape conviction:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation reviewed her cases in April 2001, finding that she deliberately and repeatedly falsified DNA matches, withheld exculpatory evidence, and failed to test samples sent to her laboratory. Macy stepped down unexpectedly in June of 2001 but said the investigation wasn’t behind his early retirement. He cited a desire to spend more time with his family. He died in 2011.
From 1980 to 1993, Gilchrist provided evidence for thousands of the Oklahoma County DA’s criminal cases, including just over half of the convictions that resulted in the death penalty. 11 of those people were executed before their cases could be reviewed for errors.
In 2007, an Oklahoma County death row inmate was exonerated after Gilchrist’s testimony in that case was proven fraudulent. The state government and innocence organizations continue to review other cases where convictions were secured largely by her testimony.
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