State Questions on Ballot

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October 31, 2016

By Paul Joseph, Paragon Communications News Director –

What are all these State Questions on the upcoming ballot?

Does one vote “for” SQ 790 if we want a Christian monument at the capital?   Does State Question 776 get rid of the death penalty?  And does the 1-cent sales tax for education ever sunset?  Which one lets us buy a cold beer?

Beginning tonight, we’re starting a five-part series that explores the seven state questions on the upcoming November General Election Ballot.

Tonight, we’ll look at State Question 776 also called the “Death Penalty.”

According to a couple of different sources, the Oklahoma Secretary of State’s website, another website, OKPolicy.org and a special online explanation provided by the Tulsa World, SQ 776 changes the state constitution to reaffirm the state’s right to impose capital punishment.

A vote “for” SQ 776 is voting for new mandates relating to the death penalty and methods of execution.

The question, if approved, gives the Legislature the power to designate any method of execution, prohibits the reduction of a death sentence due to an invalid method of execution and prohibits the death penalty from being ruled “cruel and unusual punishment” or unconstitutional according to the Oklahoma Constitution.

The state question was offered in part because of increasing difficulty obtaining drugs for lethal injections, the current form of execution in Oklahoma.  It was also offered due to recent problems with the death penalty in Oklahoma which led to a lawsuit that reached the US Supreme Court.

Oklahoma last enacted its death penalty in 1976 and has been consistently applied in the execution of 191 men and three women between 1915 and 2014, 82 by electrocution, one by hanging and 111 by lethal injection.  Statutes specifically allow gas inhalation, electrocution and firing squad as backups to the primary form of lethal injection.

A grand jury’s recent investigation of a couple of the state’s botched executions didn’t return any indictments of wrong-doing, but did find numerous flaws in the execution protocol.

Supporters of the question say the state should protect its ability to carry out the death penalty and find workable methods rather than ending executions.

Opponents say the elimination of the death penalty will eliminate the role of the court system in the penalty’s checks and balances role and the drugs used in the executions are getting harder to find.

In fact, many states no longer have the drugs used to carry out lethal injections which are the method Oklahoma uses.  Recent executions in prisons around the country used alternative drugs which may have produced adverse outcomes.

State Question 776 also states that a death sentence may not be ‘reduced’ – that is, commuted to a prison term – should a particular method of execution become impossible to carry or ruled unconstitutional and that the Legislature is expressly empowered to designate any method of execution not prohibited by the US Constitution.

The death penalty is legal in 31-states and illegal in 19.

Tomorrow night at 5 pm, we’ll look at State Question 777, also called the “Right to Farm” as we continue our series this week through Friday night on the state questions on the upcoming Oklahoma ballot.

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