Oklahoma

UPDATE: Gov. Mary Fallin refused to grant clemency to Davis. On June 6, the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board recommended clemency for Brian Darrell Davis, who is facing execution on June 25. The board voted 4-1 to recommend that Davis's death sentence be commuted to life in prison without  parole. The parole board recommended clemency after Davis took responsibility for the crime and apologized to the family of the victim. "A weight lifted off of all of us," said his mother, Yvonne Davis. "Brian does deserve a second chance." Davis was convicted of murdering his girlfriend's mother. The recommendation now goes to Governor Mary Fallin, who can approve or reject the vote. The governor also has the authority to grant a 30-day stay in order to consider the case further.

The United Kingdom has introduced restictions on the exportation of propofol after officials in Missouri announced they would begin using the anesthetic in executions. Exports of sodium thiopental, another anesthetic previously used in executions, were restricted after several states obtained that drug from DreamPharma, a drug company run out of the back of a driving school in London. Vince Cable, the U.K. Business Secretary, said, "This country opposes the death penalty. We are clear that the state should never be complicit in judiciary executions through the use of British drugs in lethal injections." The ban will not prevent export of the drug for medical purposes.

Missouri is the first state to announce its intention to use propofol in executions. All executions in 2012 have used the anesthetic pentobarbital. Lundbeck, Inc., the Danish producer of pentobarbital, announced restrictions on its distribution to avoid its use in lethal injections. Recently, manufacturing rights were transferred to a U.S. company, Akorn, Inc., but restrictions on pentobarbital's use were to stay in place.  This week, Texas announced that it will begin using pentobarbital in a new one-drug protocol for executions.  Four other states have already used a one-drug procedure.  Oklahoma, which had previously stated that it had only enough pentobarbital for one more execution, announced on July 11 that it had acquired 20 additional doses from an unnamed source.

Al Jazeera recently released a video of an interview with former Oklahoma death-row inmate Michael Selsor (pictured). Selsor was the most recent person executed in the U.S. and probably the inmate who served the longest time between conviction and execution of anyone in U.S. history.  He was first sentenced to death in 1976 for murder and was imprisoned over 36 years prior to his execution on May 1, 2012.  Although his sentence was reduced to life when Oklahoma's death penalty was overturned in 1976, he was re-sentenced to death for the same crime in 1998.  The interview was conducted in 2010 and was the only interview Selsor granted. When asked about the difference between the death penalty and life without parole, Selsor said, “The only difference between death and life without parole is one you kill me now, the other one you kill me later. There's not even a shred of hope. There's no need to even try to muster up a seed of hope because you're just gonna die of old age in here....With the death penalty sentence I'm entitled to more appeals - the government's gonna pay for it. I don't have to do it myself if I don't have the money for a lawyer which I don't have. Instead I'm relying on public defenders to do my appeals."  Selsor was also asked about how he was handling his inevitable execution: “I'm not gonna beg 'em to spare my life. I'll try to keep my head up with a little bit of dignity, and I'm gonna be buried out on Periwood Hill.”   See the video of the interview.

On December 5, the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board narrowly voted (3-2) to deny clemency to death row inmate Gary Welch, the first person scheduled to be executed in the country in 2012.  Welch was sentenced to death in 1996 for a murder that started as a fight related to a drug deal.  Welch said the victim first stabbed him with a knife and he tried to defend himself.  "To me, this was life or death. It was just luck that I survived," said Welch.  "My intentions were never to kill him.  But I also didn't intend for him to kill me either."  Welch's co-defendant, Claudie Conover, was also initially sentenced to death, but the sentence was later reduced to life without the possibility of parole.  Conover died of natural causes in 2001.  In Oklahoma, the governor makes the final decision on clemency, but must first have a positive recommendation from the Parole Board.