Oklahoma is planning to execute a death row prisoner nearly every month starting in August through 2024, a move that is likely to cause outrage among opponents of the death penalty. The Oklahoma Court of Appeals set the execution dates on Friday for six convicted murderers who have all exhausted their appeals, and plans for executions to take place once a month, the Guardian reports. The executions were on hold because of a lawsuit over botched lethal injections. In June, a federal judge ruled that the state's three-drug lethal injection method is constitutional and does not amount to cruel and unusual punishment. After the court ruling, Oklahoma Attorney General John O'Connor asked for more than two dozen executions to be scheduled.
More than 42 inmates in Oklahoma are sentenced to death. In 2021, the state carried out its first execution since the moratorium was put in place. Witnesses said inmate John Gran, convulsed and vomited during the capital punishment. A court said it was “unsurprising” that Grant regurgitated during the execution, given that he had a full stomach at the time. Several men on death row are pursuing claims of innocence.