From [DPIC] The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has set execution dates for 25 of the state’s 43 death-row prisoners, scheduling nearly an execution a month from August 2022 through December 2024. If carried out, the execution schedule, unprecedented in the state’s history, would put to death 58% of the state’s death row, including multiple prisoners with severe mental illness, brain damage, and claims of innocence. 

The court issued its execution schedule in two orders on July 1, 2022, in response to an application filed on June 10 by Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor. O’Connor sought the execution dates four days after Federal District Judge Stephen Friot denied a challenge to the constitutionality of the state’s lethal-injection protocol brought by 28 of the state’s death-row prisoners. Oklahoma uses a three-drug execution process that includes the controversial drug midazolam, which has been implicated in multiple botched executions. 

The state court’s execution orders came two weeks after the prisoners filed notice in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit that they intended to appeal Judge Friot’s ruling. Under the schedule, Oklahoma would begin to execute prisoners before the circuit court can rule on the prisoners’ appeal. The state previously executed four prisoners while the federal trial on the drug protocol was pending. 

The executions are set to take place in four phases of six executions each, plus an additional 25th execution. Within each phase, the executions are scheduled at four-week intervals, followed by an execution-free month before the start of the next phase. James Coddington is scheduled to be the first prisoner put to death, with an execution date of August 25, 2022. All prisoners facing execution in Oklahoma are afforded a clemency hearing within three weeks of their execution date. The Pardon and Parole Board, which has the responsibility to conduct those hearings, meets in public session only once each month and requested that it conduct no more than one clemency hearing per meeting.