OK AG suggests state delay executions

Attorney General Drew Edmondson urged the state Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday to postpone scheduling executions in Oklahoma until the U.S. Supreme Court settles the issue of what is cruel and unusual punishment.

Oklahoma has 80 inmates on death row, but no executions now are scheduled, said Jerry Massie, spokesman for the state Corrections Department.

Edmondson said the U.S. Supreme Court is going to hear an appeal of a lethal injection case that claims that Kentucky's execution process violates the federal constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Oklahoma, like Kentucky, uses lethal injection for executions.

"The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment,” Edmondson said. "The issue before the Supreme Court is what standard defines ‘cruel and unusual.' In Oklahoma, our standard prohibits the wanton infliction of pain. In the Kentucky case, the defendant is asking the court to set the standard at unnecessary risk of pain.”

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Texas waiting, too

In the past two weeks, two Texas executions have been stayed because of the Kentucky case, Edmondson said.

It's likely any executions scheduled in Oklahoma would be stayed, too, he said.

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It's a barbaric process that most civilized countries have banned.