State officials have been feeling the pressure since the bloody, 43-minute lethal injection of Clayton Lockett in 2014. What do newly released records show about the political wrangling behind the scenes of Oklahoma’s death penalty process?
A string of botched executions in Ohio, Oklahoma and Arizona as well as exonerations in many states have fueled media coverage and brought more scrutiny of the process. Why do some executions grab the national spotlight while others happen quietly in obscurity?
Killed were three juveniles, a 5-year-old girl, a 7-year-old boy and a 12-year-old boy, along with the two parents, 52-year-old David Bever and his wife, 44-year-old April Bever, BAPD Cpl. Leon Calhoun said.
Two days before Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office announced the termination of former jail administrator Shannon Clark, an ex-employee filed a lawsuit alleging “hostile and malicious conduct,” naming Clark and other jail staff.
Major Tom Huckeby once likened the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office to a “paramilitary†operation, imbued with strong discipline and order.
But in court records and internal reports, others painted a far different picture: one where supervisors in the Tulsa Jail labeled black employees “N†in personnel files, Huckeby and others allegedly had “rampant sex†with co-workers and black inmates were assaulted for sport.
Meanwhile, supervisors at all levels in the Sheriff’s Office said they feared Huckeby — then a captain who appeared to enjoy the favor of Sheriff Stanley Glanz.
