Oklahoma wasted no time in setting dates for 25 executions after a judge ruled in June that its lethal injection process was constitutional. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on Friday scheduled executions for six inmates, and then later added dates for 19 more, The Washington Post reports. The state has a poor track record with executions—it stopped going through with them in 2015 because of two botched lethal injections. In one of those cases, the inmate jolted around for 43 minutes before dying of a heart attack. The first execution in six years happened in 2021, when the inmate convulsed and vomited before he died. Death row inmates in Oklahoma are given a clemency hearing at least 21 days before execution so the state’s pardon and parole board can weigh recommending that the governor grant a reprieve. Many of those scheduled to be executed either have intellectual disabilities that should disqualify them or strong innocence claims having to do with racial bias, their lawyers told the Post.
