OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A member of the Oklahoma House drafted a resolution Wednesday seeking the impeachment of state Supreme Court justices who granted a delay of execution to two death row inmates.
Republican state Rep. Mike Christian told The Associated Press that the five justices engaged in a “willful neglect of duty” when they granted stays of execution Monday to Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner, both of whom were scheduled to be executed this month.
Lockett and Warner, who aren’t challenging their convictions, have filed a civil lawsuit seeking the source of the drugs used to execute them. Pending the resolution of that lawsuit, they asked for a stay of execution.
The Court of Criminal Appeals has said it couldn’t weigh in on the delay of execution because it didn’t have the power or the authority, so the high court said a “rule of necessity” led to its decision Monday. Under the state constitution, the Supreme Court handles civil cases while the Court of Criminal Appeals takes those involving inmates.
“This is a case of our state’s judges inserting their personal biases and political opinions into the equation,” said Christian, a former Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper.
An impeachment effort would have no impact on the current proceedings, which has put the state’s two highest courts at odds. Attorney General Scott Pruitt claims Oklahoma is facing a “constitutional crisis,” but the high court’s action is a victory for the inmates and their lawyers, who have successfully used questions about drug secrecy to at least temporarily shut down Oklahoma’s death chamber.
While courts in Missouri and Texas have rejected claims that secretive death row procedures could expose inmates to painful executions, Lockett and Warner benefited by bypassing the Court of Criminal Appeals and taking their plea directly to the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
Gov. Mary Fallin halted Lockett’s execution to ensure he won’t be put to death before his day in court, but complains the state Supreme Court strayed from a mandate that it handle only civil matters when it issued its own order stopping executions over the drug question.
“There is no reasonable rationale of this being anywhere near the realm of a civil case,” said Rep. Aaron Stiles, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. He complained that the state Supreme Court, which often strikes down legislative initiatives as unconstitutional, has crossed a line by granting a stay of execution.
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
“Pro-life” conservatives at work…and I’m not talking about the Judges!
You can’t kill human beings fast enough for blood-thirsty Oklahoma Republicans.
Earlier today we read about trumped up articles of impeachment against Missouri’s Govenor Nixon. Now we read about these equally trumped up articles of impeachment against Oklahoma Supreme Court judges doing their job. Did ALEC hire a recent law school graduate trying to make a name for himself?
Oh for fuck’s sake. Of course it’s a civil action. No indictment for a crime? Request for relief by a plaintiff who isn’t the state for relief that doesn’t involve imprisonment, execution or a fine? Civil action.
Christ, Republicans use words the way Humpty Dumpty did in Through the Looking Glass.
I have a theory that this deathlust from the right wing is actually a sexual fetish: They get off by killing people.
And why not? Killing another person has to be the biggest sex turn on for them.