OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt said Tuesday he is confident in the state’s current lethal injection protocols and has no plans to endorse a switch to nitrogen gas, even as several states are mulling following Alabama’s lead in using nitrogen gas to execute death row inmates.
Stitt said he visited the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester in 2020 after the state revamped its lethal injection protocols following a series of problematic executions and he is confident in the way lethal injections are being carried out.
“I know exactly how it works. I know exactly what they’re doing,” Stitt told The Associated Press in an interview. “I don’t want to change a process that’s working.”
The head of Oklahoma’s prison system, Steven Harpe, and his chief of staff, Justin Farris, had previously visited Alabama to study its nitrogen gas protocols and said last week they were exploring that method as an option.
Alabama last week became the first state to use nitrogen gas to put a person to death, and Ohio’s attorney general on Tuesday endorsed a legislative effort to use nitrogen gas in that state. Alabama, Mississippi and Oklahoma all have authorized nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method, although Oklahoma’s law allows it only if lethal injection is no longer available.