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[This article orginally appeared in the February 2005 newsletter of the National Association of Social Workers, Oklahoma Chapter (NASW-OK).]

Social Work, Oklahoma, and the Death Penalty

By Kevin Acers

According to Social Work Speaks (2003), “NASW’s broad ethical principle that social workers respect the inherent dignity and worth of each person prohibits support of the death penalty.” What does that imply for social workers in a state like Oklahoma?

Popular support for the death penalty here has been well documented, and the frequency of Oklahoma executions in recent years has placed our state near the top in terms of carrying out death sentences. In the year 2001, for example, Oklahoma executed more inmates than any other state in the nation. While not comprehensive, the following “factoids” may help illustrate Oklahoma’s connection to the on-going conversation on the death penalty:

Oklahoma has executed a total of 155 men and 3 women between 1915 and 2004. Eighty-two were executed by electrocution (the last in 1966), one by hanging, and beginning in 1990, 75 by lethal injection.

Lethal injection was “invented” in Oklahoma. Prior to the US Supreme Court-mandated suspension of capital punishment in 1972, Oklahoma’s executions were carried out with the electric chair. When this moratorium was lifted in 1977, restoring the state’s mothballed electric chair to working order would have cost some $60,000. A state lawmaker asked the chief of anesthesiology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center to design a cheaper, more humane way to put prisoners to death. The result was an execution protocol involving the administration of a toxic, 3-chemical combination, and Oklahoma quickly signed into law the world’s first lethal injection statute. Texas enacted an identical law the very next day. Lethal injection has quickly become the most widely used method of executing prisoners.
Oklahoma has executed more women than any other state--including a mentally retarded woman. In the year 2001, the entire female population of the state’s death row at that time—3 women—were executed. The first of these was Wanda Jean Allen. She was the first woman to be executed in Oklahoma since statehood and the first African American woman to be executed in the United States in almost 50 years. No other state has executed as many women since the reinstatement of capital punishment. Sentenced to death in 2004 for the murder of her husband, Brenda Andrew is now the only woman on Oklahoma’s death row.

Wanda Jean Allen's case is something of a microcosm for many of the concerns often raised about how the death penalty is implemented in America. In addition to being a racial and sexual minority (she was executed for the murder of her same-sex partner), Allen was determined by a doctor to be mildly mentally retarded at age 15 with signs of brain damage. Allen’s inexperienced trial attorney accepted $800 from her family to defend her, not thinking it would become a death penalty case. He had never before tried a capital murder case, and with no resources to hire an investigator or expert witnesses, the attorney realized he was in over his head. The trial judge denied his requests either to be taken off the case or for assistance from a more experienced public defender. The jury that sentenced Allen to death did so without hearing evidence related to her suspected brain damage or mental retardation. Despite these factors, the courts failed to grant relief on appeal. In the end, the drama of Allen’s unsuccessful plea for clemency and her subsequent execution drew international attention.

Oklahoma is one of only seven states to have executed juvenile offenders in the past quarter century. In 1999, Oklahoma death row inmate Sean Sellers became the nation's first prisoner in 40 years to be executed for crimes committed as a 16-year-old. Oklahoma executed another juvenile offender in 2003, Scott Haines, for crimes committed when he was seventeen. Oklahoma prosecutors have continued to seek the death penalty for juvenile offenders in recent years.

Our state’s unsuccessful efforts to execute even younger offenders resulted in the landmark US Supreme Court ruling, Thompson v. Oklahoma, in 1988. The court established then that executing an individual for crimes committed when they were 15 or younger constituted “cruel and unusual punishment,” leaving the door open for executing 16- and 17-year olds.

The US Supreme Court is currently re-examining the constitutionality of executing juvenile offenders. A ruling is expected later this year in Roper v. Simmons. NASW filed a “friend of the court” brief in that case, arguing against all juvenile executions. The United States is virtually alone in the world in following the Thompson v. Oklahoma standard rather than the internationally recognized prohibition of executing anyone for crimes committed under the age of 18.

Oklahoma has a record of sentencing innocent people to death. Our state has one of the highest rates of known wrongfully convicted death row inmates in the country. Since 1973, 117 people in over 25 states have been released from death row because of evidence clearly indicating their innocence, most recently in October 2004. (This number does not include many others who have been released due to prosecutorial misconduct and unfair trials, including several from Oklahoma, who may well also be innocent.) Seven of these exonerated prisoners were on death row in Oklahoma—only one less than Texas, although that state’s death row population is more than four times the number of Oklahoma’s.

One of the most dramatic Oklahoma exonerations is that of Ron Williamson, who once came within 5 days of execution before DNA testing led to his release. Williamson, whose mental illness was exacerbated by 11 years of wrongful incarceration and lack of access to psychiatric treatment, chose to stay in Oklahoma following his 1999 release. He has continued to struggle with the injustices he suffered. Tragically, Williamson died last month due to liver failure after only five years of having his liberty restored.

While DNA technology is an important tool in detecting wrongfully condemned prisoners like Williamson, the reality is that most capital crimes do not leave behind evidence which can be tested. Therefore, the risk for executing an innocent prisoner remains very real. The well-publicized scandal surrounding an Oklahoma City Police Department forensic chemist who was found to have provided misleading or unscientific testimony in dozens of cases, helping to secure death sentences, is a stark reminder of this risk.

Oklahoma's death row is housed in a controversial, underground facility. A statistically significant number of Oklahoma death row inmates have waived their appeals, hastening their executions. It has been suggested that this may be partly in response to prison conditions. Prisoner treatment and the physical design of the "supermax" H-Unit at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester have been described as substandard and inhumane by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the United Nations Human Rights Committee.
The federal government’s resumption of executions began with Timothy McVeigh. McVeigh’s 2001 execution was the first carried out for a federal crime since 1963, once again bringing worldwide attention to Oklahoma. McVeigh was executed for his part in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Since his execution, two other federal prisoners have been executed. Another federal inmate facing execution, David Paul Hammer, is from Oklahoma, where most of his family live.
While most Oklahomans support the death penalty, there are nuances to that support. A scientific opinion poll recently conducted by the University of Oklahoma reveals that nearly two-thirds of Oklahomans favor legislation banning the execution of juvenile offenders, and a majority support a moratorium on executions while the state studies the costs and fairness of the death penalty. Some 84% indicated they believe that an innocent person has been executed in Oklahoma.

NASW's position is that “the U.S. government and all state authorities should abolish the death penalty for all crimes and should institute certain interim safeguards pending abolition of the death penalty, including a moratorium on executions, raising the minimum age in which the death penalty may be used to 18, preventing use of the death penalty in cases in which defendants are mentally impaired, and ensuring that capital defendants are represented by trained, experienced, and adequately compensated attorneys" (Social Work Speaks, 2003).

Perhaps the most fundamental—and most problematic—aspect of the death penalty is the myriad of conditions that make up the complex social context in which capital crimes take place. Preventative social work interventions on the micro and macro levels which encompass these issues—child maltreatment, poverty, racism, conflict resolution, impulse control, substance abuse, domestic violence, educational needs, early diagnosis and treatment of mental illness, advocacy for alternatives to strictly retributive criminal justice models, problem-solving frameworks based on human rights and social justice—all have a role to play in working towards reducing violent criminal behavior associated with the death penalty.

SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE IDEAS RELATED TO THE DEATH PENALTY

Support groups and/or individual counseling for family members of homicide victims;

Public education events focusing on restorative justice models (see www.mvfr.org, website of Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation);
Support groups and/or individual counseling for family members of death row inmates facing years of post-conviction incarceration and lengthy appeals;
Support groups and/or individual counseling for family members of death row inmates facing imminent execution and in the aftermath of their loved one's execution;
Forensic social work investigating death row inmates’ biopsychosocial histories (the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System has expressed an interest in having social work practicum students assist in this capacity);
Social Work research assessing the needs of communities, families, and individuals impacted by violent crime and the death penalty;
Advocacy for death penalty reforms, moratorium, and/or abolition (NASW-Oklahoma is an organizational member of the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, whose monthly meetings are open to the public; see www.ocadp.org ).

Kevin Acers is a past board member of the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and 2003 recipient of that organization’s Lifetime Commitment to Death Penalty Abolition award. A former death penalty abolition coordinator in Oklahoma for Amnesty International, he has served on the board of directors of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma and is a member of the NASW.