Clayton Lockett. 

If there’s one thing that should never become routine to cover as a journalist, it’s an execution.

Though I’d covered three other executions in the past and knew what to expect, I knew the execution of Clayton Lockett five years ago was likely to be different.

Oklahoma’s prison system was using a new, unproven sedative — midazolam — that most experts said may not fully anesthetize Lockett before the second and third drugs in the state’s lethal cocktail kicked in. (The U.S. Supreme Court has said such a situation could run afoul of the 8th Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment because it risks rendering the inmate feeling like he’s being burned alive while unable to move.)

On top of that, events set in motion by Gov. Mary Fallin meant two inmates were scheduled for execution on the same night — April 29, 2014 — with just two hours between for prison staff to get ready.

Fallin wasn’t exactly on standby at the Capitol making sure the high-stakes event went smoothly. As we later learned, she was attending a Thunder NBA playoff game. The state’s attorney general at the time, Scott Pruitt, wasn’t anywhere to be found either.

An inexperienced doctor and a prison lacking proper IV equipment added to the risk something could go wrong for the state. Still, Oklahoma pressed on with its plan to execute Lockett, a ruthless killer who ordered a 19-year-old girl shot and buried because he wanted her truck.

The night began when Cary Aspinwall and I, both working for the Tulsa World at the time, piled into my SUV along with World photographer John Clanton for the drive to McAlester.

In more than 25 years covering criminal justice in Oklahoma, I was never the first to raise my hand to witness an execution. Such an assignment should never be forced on anyone but it’s also an essential part of our job to ensure the state follows the law. So I witnessed my share through the years, but no more than necessary.

Covering an execution is a whole lot of hurry up and wait. At the appointed time, journalists are allowed into the prison media center, a one-story white cinderblock building on the grounds of the aging Oklahoma State Penitentiary, equipped with outlets, long plastic tables and metal folding chairs.

About an hour before Lockett’s scheduled 6 p.m. execution, prison staff drew the names of media witnesses. After problems with this new drug in other states and a fierce legal battle between our governor and state courts, journalists from around the world showed up to cover the event but only reporters working for state outlets would get the few available seats.

Cary and I decided a few weeks earlier that I would witness Lockett’s execution, if selected, and she would handle the second execution, of Charles Warner.

I was proud that the World was among a few, possibly the only, media outlets to devote significant attention to the victims in both cases – 19-year-old Stephanie Neiman and 11-month-old Adriana Waller — before Lockett’s botched execution became an international news story.

About 5:30 p.m., I was among a dozen journalists from across the state loaded into two white vans and driven a short distance to the prison’s “H unit,” where death row is housed. We had to leave everything behind – purses, wallets, watches, phones and even our own notebooks and pens.

After we passed through the metal detectors, we were patted down and prison staff handed each of us a small spiral notebook and pen.

We were led into a small room, death row’s law library, to wait. Those of us who had witnessed executions knew Lockett’s fellow inmates might give him a send off by clanging on their cell bars. The racket is a sign of respect but we weren’t sure if Lockett — a notoriously difficult inmate who kept to himself — would receive it.

About 5:40 p.m. we heard the eerie sound of clanging bars coming through the air vents.

About 10 minutes later, prison guards led the 12 of us from the law library down a long, sterile hallway toward the execution viewing chamber, directing us into a row of metal folding chairs pressed up against the wall.

The execution chamber is actually four small rooms that share common walls. There’s the main room where the inmate lies under a white sheet strapped to a gurney, with the doctor, the prison’s warden and a couple of other prison staff in the room with him.

The death chamber adjoins the main viewing room, where state officials, attorneys and media witnesses watch the process through large picture windows. A second viewing room with one-way glass windows sits behind this room, reserved for relatives of the victim who want to observe the execution.

The fourth room is a windowless chamber where three volunteer executioners wait to hear the warden’s direction before pushing syringes full of lethal drugs into tubes leading through holes in the wall and down into the inmate’s body.

The blinds in the viewing windows are normally raised a few minutes after 6 p.m. but on this night, they remained closed until well after that time. We later learned the doctor and paramedic made increasingly frantic attempts to start Lockett’s IV, despite lacking properly sized needles. (Oklahoma law allows the state to keep the names of the doctor and other execution participants a secret so there’s no way to know what their qualifications are.)

At 6:23 p.m., the blinds were finally raised. Asked if he had any last words, Lockett said no and Warden Anita Trammell ordered the execution to begin. That’s when 50 units of midazolam, the unproven new sedative, flowed into his IV.

A few minutes later, the doctor checked Lockett and said he was still conscious. A few more minutes ticked by on the plain black and white clock above Lockett’s gurney. Another consciousness check of sorts. This time, the doctor declares Lockett unconscious.

Not long after the lethal second and third drugs are pushed, I notice the first movement. A slight kick of his right leg. Then his head rolls to the side and he mumbles something.

A horrific scene unfolds as Lockett begins writhing and bucking against his restraints. It looks like he’s trying to get up, I thought. One of his defense attorneys began crying in the viewing chamber.

Lockett rolls his head from side to side, mumbling phrases some witnesses understood. All I could hear him say was “man.” He lifts his head and shoulders off the gurney several times, clenching his teeth. It’s pretty clear to me he’s in pain. (The Supreme Court has said inmates aren’t entitled to a pain free execution but that states shouldn’t wantonly inflict pain either.)

After what seems like an eternity but was actually about three minutes after Lockett began moving, the doctor gets up from his chair. He lifts up the sheet to check him and then whispers something to the warden.

“We’re going to lower the blinds temporarily,” the warden says.

A black landline phone rings in the viewing chamber and various state officials scurry in and out. Time creeps by and I want to run out of the place to start writing. Instead I write whole paragraphs furiously on my notebook.

Prison guards admonish us to be quiet and stay in our seats as some of the reporters begin interviewing Lockett’s defense attorneys, who watched the same shocking scene with us.

At 6:50 p.m., Department of Corrections Director Robert Patton tells us the execution has been “stopped.”

“We’ve had a vein failure in which the chemicals did not make it into the offender,” he says.

Of course veins don’t fail. But improperly placed IVs certainly do, as a state report later noted. Even government systems that have worked with lethal efficiency for years can fail when deprived of proper resources, oversight and transparency when things go wrong.

Ziva Branstetter works as the Corporate Accountability Editor at the Washington Post and was former Editor in Chief at The Frontier.

Related reading

Unable to purchase execution equipment, Oklahoma poised to build the device itself

Prior to botched execution, public had lost interest in death penalty

Death penalty timeline
2014
April 29 – Clayton Darrell Lockett, 38, is executed. The execution was halted after a supposedly unconscious Lockett began speaking and writhing on the table. He died of a heart attack 43 minutes after the execution began. Charles Frederick Warner was set to be executed as well, but it was not carried out following the Lockett debacle.
Sept. 30 – After months of investigation and review, DOC releases its revised execution protocol. The protocol mirrors that of Arizona, where Director Robert Patton formerly worked.
Oct. 10 – DOC officials show off the renovated execution chamber at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. More than $106,000 was spent on the renovation, most of which was spent updating the operations room and death chamber itself. So far it has been used only once.

2015
Jan. 15 – Charles Frederick Warner, 47, is executed. It is later learned that a wrong drug — potassium acetate rather than potassium chloride — was used in his execution.
April 14 – Nitrogen gas inhalation adopted by state Legislature as execution option.
Sept. 16 – The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals stays the execution of Richard Glossip mere hours before he was scheduled to die by lethal injection. A new execution date is set for Sept. 30.
Sept. 30 – DOC officials realize they have again purchased potassium acetate instead potassium chloride as they prepare to execute Richard Glossip later that day. Glossip’s execution was halted.
Oct. 2 – Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals imposes indefinite stay on all executions.

2016
Nov. 8 – Despite state’s recent problems conduction executions, not to mention the court-mandated stay, Oklahoma voters elect to enshrine executions in the state’s constitution. The vote ensures capital punishment will be available even if higher courts later rule lethal injection unconstitutional.

2018
March 14 – Department of Corrections Director Joe Allbaugh announces DOC will use nitrogen gas as primary method of execution.

2019
March 13 – Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter tells television station KFOR that the delay in finishing the state’s new death penalty protocol is due to difficulties in finding a device that will administer nitrogen gas, saying that manufacturers of such devices are wary of public blowback.

March 28 – Hunter tells attendees at an Oklahoma District Attorneys Council meeting that, unable to purchase the equipment needed to administer nitrogen in an execution, the state would instead look to build its own device.

The post Chaotic night at Lockett execution kickstarted five years of death penalty turmoil appeared first on The Frontier.

Women in the Regimented Treatment Program at the Dr. Eddie Warrior Correctional Center in northeast Oklahoma wear military-style boots and uniforms that distinguish them from other inmates. Allison Herrera/KOSU

Robyn Allen saw her daughter for the first time in two years from across the yard of Oklahoma’s largest women’s prison, the Mabel Bassett Correctional Center.

Because the two were serving time for the same 2013 methamphetamine case, they weren’t supposed to communicate. But as Allen’s daughter, Cherise Greer, was being loaded into a van on her way to another prison this summer, the guard turned away.

Greer, in an orange prison uniform, called out: “I love you.”

“She told me she loved me and said, ‘Mom, please don’t cry,’ ” said Allen, 52, wiping away tears as she recalled the moment.

Robyn Allen, 52, is serving 20 years at the Mabel Bassett Correctional Center in central Oklahoma for trafficking of methamphetamine. This was her first felony offense. Courtesy Glassbreaker Films

When their paths crossed in June, Allen and her daughter were among more than 3,000 women serving time in Oklahoma, which for 25 years has led the nation in locking up women. The state imprisons 151 out of every 100,000 women, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics – more than double the national rate.

In partnership with The Frontier, an Oklahoma journalism startup, Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting spent more than a year unearthing the causes. The reporting included obtaining a decade’s worth of state prison data never before analyzed by the state itself.

The most common reason women end up in prison: drug possession. Oklahoma dealt out ever-longer sentences for these women, even as other conservative states reduced drug sentences as part of criminal justice system overhauls.

In Tulsa County, Reveal’s analysis shows that women’s sentences for some drug crimes decreased over the past seven years. That’s where an intensive program funded by oil billionaire George Kaiser’s foundation works to provide alternatives to prison for women facing long sentences for drug offenses and other crimes.

The burden of the state’s high incarceration rate falls hardest on women of color. Black women are incarcerated at about twice the rate of their representation in the state’s adult population, Reveal’s analysis shows. For Native American women, the disparity is almost three times their share of the population.

At a recent national summit on female incarceration, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin called the No. 1 ranking “a dubious honor … not something I’m proud of.”

“I’ve jokingly told crowds we don’t have meaner women in Oklahoma. We just have some that have some issues,” said Fallin, the event’s keynote speaker.

As a Republican governor of one of the reddest states in the nation, Fallin has warmed slowly to the idea of justice reform. She appointed a task force that studied Oklahoma’s justice system and recommended an overhaul to stem the flow of inmates. Recently, she pushed lawmakers to approve new reform laws, with mixed results.

State voters got tired of waiting for lawmakers to act and passed reforms that became effective in July making possession of drugs for personal use a misdemeanor.

It’s unclear how deeply the state understands the problem because it took a year and a half for Reveal to obtain a workable database to analyze. Even that data is imperfect, but it is the most complete of several incomplete and flawed data sets provided in response to a public records request filed in January 2016.

Reveal found the average sentence length for drug crimes differs markedly throughout the state, with more rural counties having the highest female incarceration rates.

Stephens County – a largely rural area where Allen and her daughter were convicted – ranked third per capita in sentencing women to prison.

Allen was given a 20-year sentence after police found 20 grams of methamphetamine, an amount that just meets the legal definition for drug trafficking. Still, her sentence is nearly twice as long as the statewide average for women convicted of trafficking.

Susan Sharp, a retired sociology professor at the University of Oklahoma, is a nationally recognized expert on female incarceration. Her research shows justice is not dispensed evenly across the state. Courtesy Glassbreaker Films

Susan Sharp, a national expert on female incarceration, wrote “Mean Lives, Mean Laws,” detailing how Oklahoma women became “collateral damage in the War on Drugs.”

Her research also shows justice is not dispensed evenly across the state, displaying another example of the chronic equity divides in criminal justice across America. Poor women in Oklahoma’s rural areas are more likely to draw the wrath of judges and prosecutors. Women who can afford private attorneys are more likely to get shorter sentences for the same crimes, especially if they live in urban areas with specialty courts for drug addiction or mental health issues.

“There are some counties that are extremely harsh, that almost anyone convicted will go to prison,” Sharp told Reveal during an interview at her home near the University of Oklahoma, where she recently retired as a sociology professor. “The district attorney is the most powerful player in the courtroom. … And if they are trying to build a reputation of being tough on crime, they’re basically going for the low-hanging fruit.”

‘Don’t shoot her’

Allen and her adult daughter, Greer, were low-hanging fruit in Duncan. The town is known for its rich farmland and colorful crepe myrtle trees. A sign on the way into town advertises Duncan as “Outlaw Country.” In the late 1800s, cowboys drove millions of head of cattle from Texas to Kansas along the Chisholm Trail, passing through land that later became Duncan.

Allen said she had a feeling for months that someone was watching her – and that a knock on the door by law enforcement was coming. Instead, it was a kick to the door on a chilly February afternoon in 2013.

Allen was smoking a cigarette in her bedroom when she saw Greer drop to the floor. The glowing red laser sight of a gun focused on Greer’s forehead. Allen thought she was a goner.

“Don’t shoot her. It’s me,” Allen said she told the local law enforcement officers who kicked in the door. “I’m the bad one.”

They found the meth in Allen’s bedroom – most of it stashed in a black purse decorated with gold stars – along with glass pipes and other paraphernalia.

Five adults lived in the stone two-story house – Allen, Greer, two other relatives and a friend – along with Greer’s 4-year-old daughter.

The five were arrested and charged with drug crimes, but only Allen was sent directly to prison as a result. Her daughter, now 32, initially received probation but now is serving an eight-year sentence after a new drug offense last year.

At the time of her arrest, Allen was out of work, waiting for disability payments for a back injury she said she suffered five years earlier while cleaning rooms at a Holiday Inn. The state’s disability waiting list never seemed to budge.

In desperation, Allen traded the Lortab painkillers and Xanax she was prescribed by her doctor for meth, which she used and sold. She was caught with 20 grams of meth, the minimum needed to charge her with drug trafficking instead of possession.

The charge was Allen’s first felony. Two decades earlier, she had misdemeanors for bouncing a check and failing to return a rented video game system.

At her 2013 sentencing hearing, Allen told District Judge Joe Enos that she’d been addicted to meth for half her life.

“It has destroyed my whole family. … I take full responsibility,” she told Enos. She asked him to send her to a drug treatment program. She had tried to get into treatment in the past, she told him, but no beds were available.

“I don’t ever want to be around meth anymore,” she said in court. “I seen what it does.”

The prosecutor asked for 30 years in prison, while Allen’s attorney argued for leniency – some time in prison, but also a treatment program.

Enos, known locally for running a stern courtroom, told Allen: “You are a specific provider and supplier of these drugs to many of the individuals who have succumbed to the terrible effects of methamphetamine.”

The drug, often made in homemade labs, killed 167 people in Oklahoma that year – though Allen had no established connection to any of them.

Robyn Allen shows her Mabel Bassett prison ID. “I don’t ever want to be around meth anymore,” she said at her 2013 sentencing hearing for drug trafficking. “I seen what it does.” Allison Herrera/KOSU

In the end, Allen took a “blind plea,” leaving the sentence up to the judge, and Enos sentenced her to 20 years for trafficking in illegal drugs. That sentence is twice the maximum amount of time recommended by the state task force.

Enos and the Stephens County district attorney’s office did not return multiple calls seeking comment. Enos retired from the state judiciary in January 2015 and now serves as a part-time municipal judge.

When Allen first arrived at the Mabel Bassett Correctional Center – a 1,200-bed concrete lockup in central Oklahoma – a guard asked her: “Robyn, who did you make mad?” That’s when she said she found out that two women on the same pod received four and five years for trafficking.

Allen wrote to Enos, asking him to reduce her sentence under a law that allows sentence reductions after a year. She didn’t hear back.

“Poured my heart into that letter,” Allen said, sobbing, “and I didn’t get nothing.”

‘They need help’

Shorter sentences for low-level and first-time drug offenders could make a big difference in the state’s overall female incarceration rate.

Reveal’s analysis focused on sentences for drug possession and distribution – two of the top crimes that land women in Oklahoma’s prisons. Women convicted of drug possession there last year were sentenced to an average of 6.2 years – a 29 percent increase from a decade ago.

Women in the Regimented Treatment Program at the Dr. Eddie Warrior Correctional Center in northeast Oklahoma wear military-style boots and uniforms that distinguish them from other inmates. Courtesy Allison Herrera/KOSU

The exception is Tulsa County, where judges handed down shorter prison terms to women. Sentences for possession there dropped to 3.3 years in 2016, down by a quarter from 2006. Reveal also found evidence suggesting that Tulsa judges have been splitting sentences and assigning shorter prison terms combined with probation or other types of supervision.

Tulsa County bucked the state trend in the number of women sentenced to prison overall, too. While that number has climbed each year since 2009 in the rest of the state, it fell by more than half in Tulsa County.

The downward trend follows the 2009 launch of Women in Recovery, a Tulsa-based nonprofit program that has received national acclaim. While it’s impossible to attribute the decline to one factor, experts say the program deserves a large share of the credit.

Women charged with certain offenses who face long sentences instead are diverted to the program, where they receive intensive oversight, including drug counseling, help with employment and life skills classes.

At a graduation ceremony in February, 16 women filed into a packed, brightly lit room as friends and relatives cheered and clapped.

One graduate recalled how she sold drugs, was addicted during her third pregnancy and had her children taken from her after she left methadone within reach of her 11-month-old baby. She was going either to prison or Women in Recovery.

“I can’t find words to express the gratitude I have for Women in Recovery,” she said during her speech. “You not only helped me process every trauma I’ve experienced, you taught me how to cope with living life without using – the greatest gift an addict can receive.”

Women graduate from the program with a job, an apartment and often renewed relationships with relatives who may have given up hope. The program claims a three-year recidivism rate of about 4 percent. A new “pay for success” agreement soon will allow Women in Recovery to earn money from the state for each woman who successfully completes the program.

But while the program is praised for its impact, it reaches only about 150 women each year.

The director of the state’s prison system, Joe Allbaugh, bluntly assessed Oklahoma’s failure to rehabilitate women.

“All we’re doing is keeping those beds in cells warm for their kids, because there are no tools being offered anywhere in the system to help these individuals stop their behavior,” he said. “They need help. They don’t need prison.”

Less than one-third of women released from prison who needed treatment for drug or alcohol misuse received it in prison, according to an Oklahoma Department of Corrections survey.

Allbaugh is worried about how the state will continue to get by with dwindling funds and prisons bulging at the seams. Hundreds of temporary bunks are crammed in spaces that once held treatment programs and life skills classes. Thousands of prisoners have flowed into costlier private prisons, and more than 1,500 are backed up in county jails, waiting for a prison bed.

Oklahoma prisons are drastically understaffed and their staff are dramatically underpaid: More than one-third of the state’s correctional officers qualify for food stamps.

Lawmakers scrambled to fill a budget deficit of nearly $900 million this year. Then the state Supreme Court cut off one bit of salvation, ruling unconstitutional Oklahoma’s reliance on a new cigarette fee to fill part of the gap.

While costly new programs are out of the question, many reforms that would reduce the number of women in prison cost only political courage.

The state task force that studied Oklahoma’s prison problem issued more than two dozen policy recommendations. Many focused on reforming the most punitive laws, slashing sentences for some drug crimes in half.

State statutes list more than 30 crimes requiring those convicted to serve 85 percent of their sentences, including six drug crimes. Oklahoma also has a “three strikes” law that can result in women being sentenced to life in prison without parole for drug crimes. Today, at least seven women are serving life sentences for drug crimes.

‘Buckle of the Bible belt’

Kris Steele, a former Oklahoma House speaker, had an epiphany in 2009: Runaway spending on prisons wasn’t translating into a safer state.

“When I began to sort of do my homework,” he said, “I realized that even though we were spending more than we ever had on incarcerating more people than we ever had, our crime rate had continued to increase.”

The 1,200-bed Mabel Bassett Correctional Center is Oklahoma’s largest women’s prison. Allison Herrera/KOSU

In 2012, Steele – a Republican leader – was an early advocate for reform, but found himself fighting a losing battle with the current governor, Fallin, and others opposed to reducing penalties for drug offenses.

“Every time the conversation began to gain steam or gain traction, somebody would come in and beat somebody in an election over the issue,” he said. “You know, they would campaign against him for being soft on crime … and so it would just always come undone.”

Steele now runs The Education and Employment Ministry, or TEEM, a nonprofit devoted to helping people re-enter the workforce after prison. He continues to advocate for reforms that save prison beds for the worst offenders.

Other red states that tend to be tougher on crime – including Texas, Utah, Kentucky, Mississippi and Georgia – have revised sentencing laws so that most prison beds are reserved for violent and career criminals. Because it costs far less to treat people with drug addiction than it does to lock them up, low-level offenders could be placed in treatment programs and governments could plow the savings back into more diversion programs.

That was the plan Oklahoma voters approved last year, making drug possession a misdemeanor and directing into treatment programs the money saved from sending fewer people to prison.

Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater was not among the measure’s supporters. On any given day, his Oklahoma City office handles the fate of more women than any other DA’s office in the state. The change, he said, robs prosecutors of a crucial bargaining chip. However, figures show the number of women being sent to prison from Prater’s county has increased 35 percent since 2009.

Steele praised Texas Republicans, including former Gov. Rick Perry, now the U.S. energy secretary, for having the courage to support bold reform.

“They said, ‘Look, you know, there’s people who are dangerous and need to be incarcerated. But we’ve got to make sure that we have the space and resources available to incarcerate those individuals and not the low-level offender who could be better served in the community through treatment and mental health care,’ ” Steele said.

“That’s exactly what they said, and that’s exactly what they did.”

On a deeper level, attitudes toward women accused of crimes need to change if the state is to shed its No. 1 incarceration ranking, Prater said. He points to a “buckle of the Bible belt” attitude in which women sometimes are viewed “as property.”

“The No. 1 thing that Oklahomans can do to address this issue is change their attitude about how we view women, how women should be treated, how we treat our children and how we treat each other,” he said.

The state’s 2010 survey of about 300 female prisoners found that two-thirds reported being victims of domestic violence as an adult. About the same number said they were physically or sexually abused as a child, and more than one-third reported being raped as an adult.

Sharp, the female incarceration expert, said some Oklahoma residents have a notion of “proper womanhood” that can warp the process of dispensing justice.

“I think the general population of the state feels that a woman – particularly a woman who has children who uses drugs – violates all the norms in a way that they find unacceptable,” she said, “and they would rather see those children grow up in foster care than to be with a mother who had a drug problem.”

‘Totally backwards’

By the time she wound up in prison the last time, Susan Watkins had suffered a lifetime of horrific abuse. She said she was raped when she was 5 and forced to watch a relative engage in sexual activity. Watkins, now 52, said that if she and her siblings didn’t watch, they would be punished.

She married at 14 and later became hooked on the rush of meth, which made her teeth fall out. She lost her 23-year-old daughter, who died from a brain aneurysm.

Mug shots through the years show the physical toll Watkins’ addiction has taken.

Mug shots of Susan Watkins from 2007 (left) and 2015 (right) show the physical toll of her meth addiction. Watkins went through the Dr. Eddie Warrior Correctional Center’s Regimented Treatment Program, where she enrolled in a communications class, worked on obtaining her GED certificate and started learning to read. Courtesy of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections

She spoke with Reveal in September 2016 when she was at the Dr. Eddie Warrior Correctional Center, a minimum-security women’s prison in northeast Oklahoma. The facility is a collection of low concrete buildings spread out across a grassy campus dotted with a few trees.

“I done everything to get my drugs. I was homeless. I ate out of trash cans behind McDonald’s,” she said, her voice trembling. “I thought losing my daughter would get me off of it, but I got on it more heavy.”

Watkins’ record illustrates the uneven nature of Oklahoma courts, too. While Robyn Allen’s first felony got her a 20-year sentence and no offer of drug treatment, Watkins has been charged with three felonies and four misdemeanors since 1998, yet has avoided a lengthy prison sentence and was offered treatment multiple times.

In a case last year, Watkins was charged with drug possession within 1,000 feet of a school. She faced a potential 10-year sentence for the crime in Pittsburg County, an area of southeastern Oklahoma known for its poverty and high number of meth labs.

Instead, prosecutors offered Watkins a stint at Eddie Warrior’s Regimented Treatment Program – a boot camp-style program that lasts up to a year.

Women in the program routinely march in formation around the prison grounds, with cadences led by inmates within the unit. They conduct drills and exercise together, with a focus on personal discipline. Unlike many prison cultures, the unit is clean and quiet; bunks are squared away.

There, Watkins enrolled in a communications class, worked on obtaining her GED certificate and started learning to read, something she never mastered during her traumatic childhood. Released from prison in December, Watkins now is living in Tulsa.

Women who end up in Oklahoma’s prisons often lack a basic education. The state had the nation’s deepest cuts to education on a per-student basis. Students in nearly 100 districts attended school four days a week last year because their districts couldn’t afford five-day weeks.

In a recent local news story, veteran Oklahoma defense attorney Rob Nigh blasted the state for locking up so many of its residents at the expense of educating them. Nigh recently retired after running the Tulsa County public defender’s office.

“I know where my clients come from,” Nigh told The Frontier. “They are the ones that don’t graduate. “And instead of investing in teachers and equipment and technology and a higher level of education, we spend our money designing new prisons and figuring contracts with private corrections corporations, which is totally backwards.

“I don’t know how we can continue to exist this way.”

This story was edited by Amy Pyle and copy edited by Nadia Wynter and Nikki Frick.

Ziva Branstetter can be reached at zbranstetter@revealnews.org. Follow her on Twitter: @ZivaBranstetter.

The post Let down and locked up: Why Oklahoma’s female incarceration is so high appeared first on The Frontier.

Mary Hargrove poses with Ethel Kennedy, widow of Robert F. Kennedy, after receiving the Grand Prize RFK Memorial Award for a series she wrote on an Arkansas juvenile detention center for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Editor’s note: Ziva Branstetter, The Frontier’s former editor-in-chief, nominated award-winning investigative journalist Mary Hargrove for a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Oklahoma Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Branstetter recently interviewed Hargrove about her career and about journalism today. 

When Mary Hargrove was about 4 years old, she told her family she wanted to be a reporter.

“They laughed at me,” she said.

More than six decades later, the only people laughing at Hargrove are those who are lucky enough to hear one of her famous anecdotes about stories she has covered, stories that include sheep, frogs and kangaroos.

Hargrove, who spent nearly two decades at The Tulsa Tribune and now lives in Tulsa, is receiving a lifetime achievement award from the Oklahoma Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists Saturday.

Hargrove, 66, is from Ohio and was briefly a reporter for the Newark (Ohio) Advocate before joining the staff of The Tulsa Tribune in 1974. During nearly 20 years at the newspaper, Hargrove was a reporter, Washington correspondent, investigations team leader and managing editor over projects.

She has won numerous state and national honors, including the Grand Prize RFK Memorial Journalism Award; the Heywood Broun Award; the Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism (first place), and The Press Club of Dallas Katie Award for Investigative Reporting (first place).

She was also named a Tulsa Press Club Media Icon in 2008 and won a lifetime achievement award from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s School of Journalism.

As an investigative editor, she helped her team of Tulsa reporters win a national award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews.

She also received awards from the Arc, The National Association of Royalty Owners, The Children’s Express of New York City and The National Association of Social Workers.

In 1982, she led the nation’s coverage of the failed Penn Square Bank in Oklahoma City. Hargrove was the only reporter to have sources early on inside the bank and its failure threatened to collapse the national banking system.

In 1986, Mary produced a series investigating the finances of Oral Roberts University. He claimed to have little money but Hargrove’s reporting revealed he had hidden assets with his son-in-law and had homes in other names in Beverly Hills, CA. and Palm Springs, Ca.

Her investigation revealed Roberts had nearly bankrupted his thriving university in an attempt to keep his City of Faith Hospital open.

She was elected to the national Investigative Reporters & Editors’ board of directors where she served as treasurer, vice president, president and chair from 1983-1991.

Hargrove was featured on the cover of Washington Journalism Review as “The Best In the West” in 1987. That same year, she was the commencement speaker for the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

Mary Hargrove was featured on the cover of Washington Journalism Review as the “Best in the West.”

When The Tribune closed in 1992, Hargrove was hired as an investigative editor in the Broward Bureau of the Miami Herald. She left the Herald in 1994 for a job as associate editor at the The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

At the Democrat-Gazette, Hargrove continued breaking national news with a series that exposed the corrupt financial dealings of popular Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, who was indicted and convicted.

Her 1998 series “Welcome to Hell” took a year and a half to write and exposed physical and emotional abuse and a murder in state-run juvenile facilities for children. It earned her the
Robert F. Kennedy Award — including being selected as the best entry among all media that year — and more than 15 national awards.

Hargrove’s work at the Democrat-Gazette was especially challenging because she learned she suffered from a rare neurological condition that nearly took her life six times between 1994 and 1997.

Her last series as a reporter, “Duty And Deliverance,” resulted in a deceased WWII POW receiving a long-delayed medal, the Legion of Merit Award.

Hargrove retired in 2005 and moved to Tulsa, where her son and grandchildren live.

‘They laughed at me’

Ziva Branstetter, The Frontier’s former editor-in-chief, nominated Hargrove for SPJ’s Lifetime Achievement award and worked at The Tribune while Hargrove was an editor from 1988 until 1992.

Branstetter recently interviewed Hargrove about her career and about journalism today. Here are excerpts of their discussion:

Since you left Arkansas, you’ve moved back here to be with family, you’ve gotten into art. Do you miss journalism?

I always will. I knew when I was 4 or 5 that I wanted to be a reporter and I told everybody and they laughed at me and I kept it up. … I read something and I think, why didn’t they do it that way or this way or that would have been interesting to try to do but you also have to have a life and I think that gets lost sometimes. When you get into investigative reporting I think that becomes your only purpose. My grandkids are wonderful and I love my painting; it’s another way to tell stories. I play my guitar, went to Australia, I’ve been to Ireland, been to Alaska. You know and each time I do I meet some very interesting people and hear their stories too.

The changes that you’ve seen in journalism, in investigative reporting, overall do you think they’ve been positive or do you think it’s a mixed bag? These days so many publications are focused on clickbait. The quality of journalism that you did doesn’t seem to be around anymore.

I definitely think it’s different. It’s better in that, particularly newspapers but everybody, you can go to their websites and click on documents that we might have just referred a paragraph to before. You can see the whole document and that kind of thing is great. … I think what you miss is going back two or three times, getting to know people, their personal stories to really know them and not just get a quote, not just get a little quick wrap up. To get to the heart of people … I think that your readers miss that. Somebody that you can identify with.

Because people are in a hurry …

Yeah. I think it kills your ability to have empathy when you don’t do that as much. I think even when you look at all the divides right now, I think that’s even a bit of us.

Not seeing each other as people?

Yes not seeing each other as people because everybody’s quick and everybody’s in a hurry and that kind of information has not been provided by reporters. … I understand the deadlines and the frustration but I do think you can commit people to doing that and to do it well so that your readers go this is not only something I can identify with this is something that I can use. For example, every time we did a series, on the last day I had an entire page of “if you are frustrated by what’s happening in the veterans’ clinics this is how you can help. You can bring them food, you can volunteer your time, clothes. This is who you report to if you know a problem.” So that people don’t just pick up the paper and go, “Man, I just feel bad now that I read that investigation.”

This seems like such a basic question but what made you decide that you wanted to be an investigative reporter and did you always know that you wanted to specialize as an investigative reporter?

Well, originally I wanted to be a TV and movie critic. I had a master’s degree in movie and TV criticism but that wasn’t going to happen. They have very few TV writers these days but I literally graduated, I got my bachelor’s in 72 and my masters in 73 in the middle of the Watergate controversy …

And that inspired you …

That was going on at the time and you know I went into the newsroom and as a woman they told me I had to wear a skirt. [perfectpullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]They said, “Even if it snows 10 feet, you are not wearing pants.” And so the first time it snowed 10 feet I wore pants and they said, “You can’t do that” and I said “then send me home. Not going to happen. I’m the only reporter that showed up today.”[/perfectpullquote]

So there was always this give her features, give her brites type thing and you know I would insist and in the case at The Tribune I actually went out on my own at night and on weekends and turned it in because I couldn’t get them to stop giving me the brites and the features.

And that was the series on child abuse?

No that was the series on deaf education and they were fighting about lip reading and signing and it was hurting the kids. There was no pattern. … So I called it the world of no barking dogs. I thought that would catch people’s attention and it was before computers so I put it in his little basket and it was a three-part series. And after two or three days I went up and he hadn’t read it yet and I said then I’m taking it back. If you don’t care enough then I’m taking it back and so I went back to my desk and pouted and he came up and said I want to read it … and you know they started it the next week.

What would you say are your proudest accomplishments. You’ve had so many. The juvenile series in Arkansas?

Yeah the juvenile detention center in Arkansas but the last series that I did was on World War II POWs and they were all Air Force.

Tell me about that.

They were in Stalag Luft III in Poland. They’d been shot down under terrible conditions. There was a man there named Ewell McCright the Germans said if you keep any records we will kill you . no discussion. Because people were disappearing, starved, shot, he started keeping a journal on little pieces of paper of every airman that came in there and their date of birth, where they were from, everything that happened to them and those who died. And just as World War II and the camp was about to be liberated … and they marched them to another camp in the winter and instead of taking food he took his journals and so he kept those. He lived in Benton, Arkansas for years… when he retired he came back like everybody else and he became a lawyer and he also became a drunk and so he was the town laugh. There was another man in town who worked for the city of Benton. He liked to write stories and collect stories about World War II men. When Ewell McCright died, his sister donated these little pieces of paper to Arnold, who at that point, spent several years on his own transcribing all those into a journal, and published it on his own, cost a lot of money, sent it out to different POWs and connected families and kids saw their stories they’d never seean. Meanwhile, his family wanted to get Ewell McCright a medal for what he’d done and it had been turned down over and over again. We did a story about what Ewell McCright did and he got his medal. … At that point I left Arkansas and that was the last thing I published and I had no money and they wanted me to speak at their 60th at their reunion. And they invited me to be their keynote and I said yes and I didn’t really have any money. I was eating lunch with somebody and I said I was worried about paying for my dog to be boarded … These guys in their 80s, all retired, privately collected money and gave me a couple hundred bucks. Coolest thing ever.

That’s a really nice way to end your career although you know, it hasn’t ended. You’ve written a book. … You care enough about The Frontier even that I’m leaving to keep in touch with them and give them encouragement. It’s good that you’re sharing your wisdom. It’s important. …. And so the recognition … you’ve had a lot of awards and a lot of recognition. Was it something that surprised you?

Oh very surprising. I mean I haven’t worked for 12 years. When I left Arkansas, I Googled myself on the last day and there were eight pages full of results of either stories I’d written, stories about me, awards I’d received, that kind of thing. Then I Googled myself about four months ago and it was a half page and four of them were obits for other Mary Hargroves. And it didn’t even make me feel bad. I just said, “OK, people have moved on,” and it’s too bad people don’t see some of this stuff but there’s news to break all the time.

Well I think you’ve left a legacy and I think I told you, you certainly inspired me and I know you inspired a lot of other journalists. Talk to me a little bit about your method because I was a cop reporter at The Tribune and I came in and I saw your method and I saw, your team all had these recorders and they had these foot pedals and they were highlighting and things so tell me about your system. It was pretty rigorous.

Most of the reporters I was dealing with were used to doing dailies … and so I would make them transcribe their interviews right away and I would find what I considered the holes in the story and make them go back immediately. One of the tricks of interviewing is that if I interview you about a topic, the first thing you do is go, “Damn I wish I’d told her that.” … I’d ask them once a week, “If you had to print today what would you say?” I also had them highlight the quotes that they liked the most because if you do, in an investigation that goes 3, 5, 6 months, a year, you forget sometimes about the most important stuff because you’ve got the newest stuff. I’d have them do that so that they’d remember it. … It was arduous, I remember when I was doing the Oral Roberts series, two of them came in and said, “If you make us do another interview, I’m going to cry,” and they were men.

That’s some hands-on editing. You don’t get that anymore. You have a lot of funny stories that you tell about various funny things that have happened to you. What’s your favorite anecdote about being a reporter?

One of the stories that just always I like to make people laugh it was part of the deal and that was why they didn’t want me doing investigations because it so hard to write funny. … Gary Kruse was the night person …

Oh yeah, I remember. I came to him every morning and we would watch all the police stuff that he had taped from TV news …

He came in this one morning and he said I heard the funniest story last night and I’m not going to check it out. It’s just too stupid to be true … There were these two cops … and they went to Claybrook’s Restaurant in north Tulsa and this drunk comes in and he’s very upset and he said, “I just ran over a kangaroo,” and everybody in the restaurant is laughing because he’s a drunk and the Tulsa Zoo doesn’t have kangaroos. … He goes, “OK, just come outside.” The waitress and the cops go outside and there’s a dead kangaroo in the back of the man’s pickup truck. After that he drove to a bar down the street, dragged the kangaroo in, put it up on the bar seat, put his arm around him and said, “Bring two, for me and my buddy,” and they said, “Get that dead rat out of here.” .. Early in the morning I called Claybrooks.  … This waitress says, “I will never not believe a drunk again.” I think the key to what I did was just ask that one extra question and I said, “How did he hit the kangaroo?” and she said, “I think he hit the kangaroo when he swerved to miss the little one.”

The post Veteran Tulsa journalist Mary Hargrove to receive lifetime achievement award appeared first on The Frontier.

Courtesy of Talk Business & Politics

UPDATE: A judge on Saturday granted an injunction that will effectively halt the seven executions that had been scheduled in Arkansas later this month.

United States District Judge Kristine G. Baker wrote in her 101-page order that it was likely that the state’s method of execution would be found to be unconstitutional, and stopped the ordered executions.

The drugs Arkansas planned on using to kill the seven men expire at the end of the month, Gov. Asa Hutchison said previously, meaning Baker’s ruling will make it difficult for the state to go ahead with the executions. The state must now find more of the necessary drugs — no easy task given that the drug manufacturers have argued against letting their drugs be used to kill the inmates.

Baker cited Frontier Editor-In-Chief Ziva Branstetter’s testimony in her ruling, noting that Branstetter had witnessed Oklahoma’s botched execution of Clayton Lockett. Arkansas planned on following a similar tack in its scheduled executions.

Branstetter testified during the four-day hearing to determine if Arkansas would carry out its executions.

The judge cited Branstetter in her order, writing that Branstetter had testified that “three minutes after Mr. Lockett was declared unconscious by a medical doctor or military equivalent as required by Oklahoma’s then-in effect protocol, Mr. Lockett kicked his right leg, rolled his head to the side, and mumbled something. Then, she wrote, and many others wrote based on what they observed, that it looked like Mr. Lockett tried to get up off the table, with his body writhing and bucking,” Baker wrote.

“(Branstetter) confirmed that ‘maybe one or two witnesses who were sort of very official types for the government said, oh, maybe he had a seizure. Everyone across the board thought that he was trying to get up. The executioner, the paramedic, the doctor, the warden,'” Baker wrote.

Lockett’s execution was scheduled to be immediately followed up with the execution of Clayton Warner. Warner’s death was paused for a time after Lockett’s execution went awry. An Oklahoma Department of Safety investigation into the botched execution eventually recommended that future executions be scheduled at least seven days apart, a fact Baker noted in her order.

The investigation found that the rush to kill both Lockett and Warner is such a short timeframe likely contributed to the botched Lockett execution.

Arkansas had planned to kill seven convicted murderers in a 10-day span, including three double executions planned an hour and fifteen minutes apart.

Our original story is below

Editor’s note: The Frontier’s editor-in-chief, Ziva Branstetter, testified Tuesday about witnessing the execution of Clayton Lockett in 2014. Read her blog about her decision to testify here. 

The fate of seven Arkansas inmates set to be executed beginning Monday is now in the hands of a federal judge, following four days of testimony about whether Arkansas can proceed with what the inmates’ attorneys call an “assembly line of death.”

Unless U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker issues an injunction halting the executions, the state plans to put two inmates to death Monday night, followed by executions of two more inmates on April 20, two on the 24th and a seventh inmate on the 27th.

The three double executions are planned an hour and 15 minutes apart, according to testimony in the case. No state has attempted to execute so many people in such a short amount of time since the nation resumed executions in 1976.

Last-minute legal actions continued Thursday, with a motion by two drug companies seeking approval from the judge to file a brief explaining why drugs they manufacture should not be used to execute the men. The drugs are midazolam, a controversial sedative used in four botched executions, and potassium chloride, the third drug used to stop an inmate’s heart.

“The Manufacturers have knowledge, experience, and perspective that go beyond that of the parties in this case,” states the motion by Fresenius Kabi USA, LLC, and West-Ward Pharmaceuticals Corp.

“They manufacture life-saving medicines. But the state of Arkansas appears to be about to
use some of those medicines to end life rather than save it. This is so despite the manufacturers’ implementation of distribution protocols to prevent this,” the motion states.

Arkansas’ governor, Asa Hutchinson, has said the state must move quickly because the state’s supply of midazolam expires at the end of the month. It has become increasingly difficult for states to obtain lethal drugs they need, as manufacturers have opposed use of their drugs in executions.

Dale Reed, chief deputy director for the Arkansas Department of Corrections, testified during the four-day hearing that Arkansas executed more than one inmate on a single date more than a dozen times between 1994 and 2001. Reed, a 43-year veteran of the Arkansas prison system, was in a supervisory role at the state’s Cummins prison — where the state’s executions are carried out — for all of those executions.

“We felt that the multiple executions were best for the staff at that time,” he said during testimony Tuesday. “There’s a lot of prep time that goes into executions … getting all the things in place.”

Reed said the prison system chose employees who were “seasoned and could handle those duties professionally and with dignity.” He said the state’s death penalty protocol was created by a previous prison warden and “that process pretty much continues today.”

For two weeks leading up to an execution, the prison staff goes through a series of drills using a volunteer employee of similar size to the condemned inmate, he said.

“We’re practicing to do the execution and … the officers have to know what they’re dealing with.”

Reed said the employees practice “the security, the cuffs, taking them into the area and tying them down.”

Though prison staff normally do 12 practice drills for each planned execution, Reed told an attorney representing the inmates that would be unlikely in the current situation.

“Are you going to do 12 practices for each of the inmates with a guard of a similar stature?” asked Julie Vandiver, an attorney with the Arkansas’ federal public defender’s office.

“Probably not since they are so close together,” Reed said.

He said he was not consulted about the state’s plan to conduct seven executions within 11 days (The state originally planned to execute eight men but one received a stay).

Reed also said he had no involvement in the state’s search for lethal drugs to use in executions and was not familiar with the lethal injection protocol.

Baker closed the courtroom for about 15 minutes while Reed was questioned about emails the state turned over to the inmates’ attorneys. Like Oklahoma and other death penalty states, Arkansas has an execution-secrecy law that allows officials to keep many details of the process secret.

Arkansas’ protocol calls for 500 milligrams of midazolam to be administered to the inmate, five times more than was used in Oklahoma. However experts have testified about the drug’s “ceiling effect,” a phenomenon in which a drug reaches maximum effectiveness and increasing amounts does not increase effectiveness.

Officials in Arizona used 15 injections of midazolam mixed with hydromorphone, a painkiller, to execute Joseph Wood in 2014. Wood’s execution took nearly two hours and one media witness counted more than 600 gasps and snorts.

A witness to Wood’s execution was one of several witnesses who testified during the Arkansas hearing about watching botched executions. Dale Baich, an assistant federal public defender in Arizona, said Wood’s execution is one of 13 he has witnessed.

Soon after the drugs began flowing, the execution “looked like the other 11 executions I had witnessed,” Baich said.

After about nine minutes, “his mouth just opened very wide and his head jerked back. He bucked up against the restraints. I saw everybody sort of jump up off their seats.”

Baich said Woods’ “just started gulping and gasping and struggling to breathe.”

“So you watched for an hour and 57 minutes while this man died?” an attorney for the inmates asked Baich.

“Yes. … I think everyone in the room was sitting there thinking, ‘When is he going to die?’” Baich replied.

He wrote a note about what was occurring in the execution and dispatched an attorney who was also present, telling her: “Call the office, they’ll know what to do.”

Baich said it took the attorney, Julie Hall, 10 minutes to get to a phone because the prison system would not allow attorneys to have their phones. Arizona now allows attorneys to bring in a phone that is held by a correctional officer during the execution, he said.

Wood’s execution lasted so long that a federal judge held an emergency hearing while he continued to gasp for breath.

“The end result was that Mr. Wood had died during the hearing and the judge dismissed it as moot,” Baich said.

He noted during cross-examination that Arizona has agreed not to use midazolam or drugs in the same class following Wood’s execution. A state investigation found that Wood’s gasping and snorting “were a totally normal part” of the dying process, a state attorney told Baich.

The post Update: Judge issues order halting Arkansas’ executions appeared first on The Frontier.

This week, I had the rare experience of being on the other side of that situation when I testified in a federal court hearing over the impending executions of seven Arkansas inmates.

The inmates are asking a federal judge to issue a preliminary injunction to stop the state from carrying out the executions, scheduled to occur over 11 days beginning Monday.

Unless U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker issues an injunction, the state plans to execute two inmates Monday night, followed by executions of two more inmates on April 20, two on the 24th and a seventh inmate on the 27th. The three double executions are planned less than an hour and a half apart, according to testimony in the case Tuesday.

No state has executed so many inmates in such a short amount of time since the nation reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Arkansas’ governor, Asa Hutchinson, has said the state must move quickly because one of the lethal drugs the state has on hand, midazolam, expires at the end of the month.

It has become increasingly difficult for states to obtain lethal drugs they need, as manufacturers have opposed use of their drugs in executions.

I received a subpoena from attorneys representing inmates in the legal challenge, heard in federal court in Little Rock, Ark.

The Frontier could have hired an attorney to quash the subpoena. Witnesses in federal civil cases can’t be compelled to appear if they live more than 100 miles from the courthouse.

However, as I explained to the judge, I believe that fulfilling my role as a journalist selected by the state of Oklahoma to witness Clayton Lockett’s execution requires me to say what I witnessed on April 29, 2014.

Oklahoma’s Department of Corrections requires media witnesses to give a report following executions to other journalists present but not selected as witnesses. But I believe it’s important to honor the spirit of being a media witness, so I’ve given interviews to media outlets all over the world since 2014.

I told the public defender who contacted me I would limit my testimony to what I had witnessed and already reported on behalf of the Tulsa World and The Frontier.

If the Arkansas’ attorney general’s office sent me a subpoena, I would have honored that as well. In fact, I was one of several journalists who agreed to take part in interviews with Oklahoma’s state investigators about Lockett’s 43-minute execution.

With the help of the Tulsa World, we did successfully halt the state of Oklahoma’s attempt to essentially remove me from the courtroom during a federal hearing over Oklahoma’s death penalty protocol in 2014.

Attorney General Scott Pruitt’s office listed me as a witness but it was clear the AG’s office had no intent to call me. The judge said the state didn’t need my testimony, as it would duplicate other witnesses’ testimony.

On the stand in Arkansas Tuesday, I discussed watching Lockett writhing, mumbling and trying to get up from the execution gurney after a doctor said he was unconscious.

I also discussed the extensive investigation that Cary Aspinwall and I conducted after the botched execution gave Oklahoma an international black eye. (We were incredibly honored to be finalists for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in local reporting as a result of this investigation we published while at the World.)

Many of our key findings were validated by the state’s extensive investigation into Lockett’s execution.

What we found was that Oklahoma was woefully unprepared for a double execution using a new drug, midazolam, that experts said was not appropriate for use in lethal injections.

Midazolam is a sedative, not an anesthetic, and all but one of the experts we interviewed said inmates would likely remain conscious while the second and third drugs were pushed, leading to a potential violation of the Eighth Amendment banning cruel and unusual punishment.

The expert who disagreed, anesthesiologist Mark Dershwitz, had testified on behalf of many states that the drug is safe and humane for use in executions but abandoned that role after a botched execution in Ohio.

Beyond the controversy over midazolam — which three states have now banned as a lethal injection drug — our investigation found Oklahoma had no contingency plan in case things went wrong.

While Arkansas’ protocol wasn’t part of our study then — the state hadn’t executed anyone during the window of time we studied — I’ve learned more about it recently due to the current legal challenge.

There are significant differences between the Oklahoma and Arkansas’ protocols, some that may make Arkansas’ process less prone to a botched execution and some that make it more likely.

Oklahoma’s investigation found that carrying out two executions in one night placed additional stress on the staff and execution team. Arkansas’ schedule calls for back-to-back executions on three nights with less time between them than Oklahoma had when Lockett’s execution went off the rails.

The state postponed the execution of Charles Warner, which had been set for two hours after Lockett’s, and ended up using a drug not on Oklahoma’s protocol to carry it out. When state officials attempted a second drug switch to execute Richard Glossip, that execution was halted.

Oklahoma hasn’t executed anyone since Warner was put to death in January 2015.

Following its investigation, the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety recommended that executions not be scheduled within seven calendar days of each other and that there be time between executions for a review in which “all involved personnel [may] voice their opinions, concerns and/or recommendations in order for continuous improvement to the process.”

A “blue ribbon panel” of experts has been quietly investigating Oklahoma’s death penalty process for more than a year. The Frontier has learned that the panel, co-chaired by former Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry, is expected to issue its report soon.

During testimony Tuesday, I agreed with the state’s attorney who cross-examined me that I’m not a doctor nor a scientist. However, I took issue with her assertion that our research on Oklahoma executions was not “scientific.”

Cary and I spent months talking to dozens of experts, poring over thousands of pages of records, creating a database tracking details in 109 execution autopsy reports and a separate database comparing lethal injection protocols from 20 states that have carried out executions since 2008.

After about an hour or so of testimony, I stepped down from the stand and resumed the role I find far more comfortable: a journalist covering an important event.

The post Testimony in Arkansas death penalty case part of media witness role appeared first on The Frontier.

Ziva Branstetter

This is a story I never thought I’d write.

I’m leaving Tulsa.

After 30 years doing the job I love in this city I love, I’ve accepted an offer to become a senior editor at The Center for Investigative Reporting in the Bay area.

I know this news will be greeted by some people with great joy. You know who you are.

Other people may be sad to see me go, because they appreciate the kind of journalism I am known for producing. Maybe they even benefitted from it.

Some of you may be wondering, who is Ziva Branstetter anyway to think it’s a big deal she has taken a new job out of state? And what is The Center for Investigative Reporting? (More about that later.)

Wherever you fall on that spectrum, I feel I owe the city and especially the growing number of readers of The Frontier a sincere explanation.

The truth is I never thought I’d leave Tulsa.

It was 1988 when I walked into The Tulsa Tribune and told Windsor Ridenour I wanted to be an investigative reporter.

Comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable would have to wait until I had more experience. The editors pointed me to a police scanner and an empty desk of a reporter they’d just fired. Talk about intimidating.

The next five years at The Trib had everything to do with the journalist I am today.

The editors — especially Mary Hargrove, Pearl Wittkopp and Rose Mary Mercer — were demanding, pushy, critical and passionate. Mary Hargrove’s tenacity and fearlessness inspired me like no other journalist and she remains one of my dearest friends today.

When The Tribune closed in 1992, I was heartbroken.

I spent a fun two years after that at The Philadelphia Daily News but I was in the features department and it just wasn’t where I wanted to be. When my husband Doug and I had the chance to return to Tulsa so I could work for the Tulsa World, I jumped at it.

I spent the next two decades at the World, and I will always be deeply grateful for the experience.

I learned how thrilling it feels to expose a corrupt politician and how quickly the public’s angry reaction can bring change. I learned how satisfying it feels to painstakingly build a database out of public records and reveal a broken government system.

I posted a story to the web for the first time and learned the power of this digital medium to reach new audiences. I also couldn’t wait to get to work so I could hear people like Rod Walton and Manny Gamallo crack jokes all day.

Covering the Oklahoma City federal building bombing and the Joplin tornado, I learned it’s OK to let your feelings show while interviewing good people caught up in devastating stories.

I developed a deep respect for the talented staff at the World. Editors like Joe Worley, Susan Ellerbach and Debbie Jackson taught me how to be a leader and how to inspire reporters to do their best work under the most challenging conditions.

When Bobby Lorton came to me two and a half years ago and pitched the idea of starting a local investigative news site, I thought it sounded like the riskiest career move I could possibly make. Actually, it turned out to be the smartest.

I have to credit my friend and former reporting partner Cary Aspinwall with giving me the courage to take Bobby up on the offer. (Fittingly, Cary and I were driving to cover an execution that went wrong when we discussed the idea.)

We needed two self-starters who were also brand name journalists to join us. Dylan Goforth and Kevin Canfield were the perfect choices.

I got to know Dylan at the World when he and I broke the Robert Bates story. That story thrust both of us into the national spotlight at the same time we were making the move from the World to The Frontier.

The Frontier owes a large part of its early success to Dylan’s hard work, whether that was editing video, shooting photos, writing a soul-baring column or breaking a news story. It seems there’s nothing Dylan Goforth isn’t good at.

As The Frontier’s new editor in chief, Dylan brings an incredible versatility and creativity to this role. I can think of no better choice to lead The Frontier as our site continues to grow both in size and in scope. Plus Dylan is the best storyteller I know.

The way Kevin Canfield has embraced this new digital world is beyond impressive.

I confess I had my doubts in the early days of The Frontier, when Cary and Dylan had to remind him more than once about the difference between # and @ on Twitter. He has since surpassed the ability of many younger journalists to find unique ways to tell stories and take advantage of all this digital medium has to offer.

Kevin is usually the first to suggest a video platform instead of a more traditional presentation for stories. His ideas are ambitious and he puts in the work to pull them off. He’s also a genuinely good person and has taught me so much about how to develop sources by just listening and caring about people.

Kevin’s talent and dedication to reporting on local government and the issues of the day will continue to benefit this city.

We added Kassie McClung to our staff after her internship proved what a great fit she was for our unconventional team. She has proven herself repeatedly with the ability to juggle complex, long-term projects such as our Unguarded series while turning out quick-hit stories on a wide range of issues.

Kassie is a self-starter with an innate talent for recognizing a good news story others have overlooked.

I would be remiss if I didn’t thank Bobby Lorton from the bottom of my heart for bringing this all together and trusting me to lead The Frontier. After the stellar public service his family provided by running the Tulsa World for more than a century, he had nothing to prove.

Bobby has a sincere belief in the power of journalism, especially local investigative journalism, to improve society. His enthusiasm for the concept of The Frontier was contagious. Tulsa is truly fortunate to have citizens such as Bobby Lorton who know that fearless local journalism is an essential part of any thriving community.

When I received the offer to become a senior editor at the Center for Investigative Reporting, I wrestled with the notion that I would be leaving Tulsa and the important work we have done here behind. But I realized that The Frontier will be fine without me and is in the best possible hands.

CIR is a nonprofit investigative news organization dedicated to exposing government fraud and waste, human rights violations, environmental degradation, threats to public safety and holding the powerful accountable. The staff is producing some of the most innovative work in journalism around and I’m honored to be joining them.

I’m also very proud of what we accomplished during my time at The Frontier.

Our reporting on the scandal at the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office had a huge impact on the ultimate outcome and will not stop until the corruption is eliminated.

We have contributed to public understanding of many important state and local issues and exposed wrongdoing that other media outlets either did not care to report or were afraid to take on. We’ve made a name for ourselves nationally within a short time and built a brand that people trust.

Some who don’t share our philosophy about the importance of local investigative journalism may hope The Frontier doesn’t survive without me. I assure you, The Frontier will not only survive, it will thrive.

We’ve added Clifton Adcock to our staff, a top-notch investigative reporter who has worked in Oklahoma journalism for more than 10 years.

For those celebrating my departure, don’t think you’re off the hook. The staff of The Frontier isn’t going anywhere. They’re just getting started.

The post Happy that I’m leaving? Don’t be. The Frontier is here to stay appeared first on The Frontier.

Following a request by The Frontier for copies of all inmate mortality reviews conducted under Sheriff Vic Regalado, a TCSO spokeswoman said Tuesday those reviews “are not open records.”

The Sheriff’s Office claims an obscure state law dealing with the hospital peer review process allows it to withhold the inmate mortality reviews from public disclosure. However, that law does not appear to be related to jails or inmate deaths.

Regalado did not respond to a request for an interview for this story Tuesday.

TCSO’s refusal to release inmate mortality reviews came one day after a jury found Regalado and former Sheriff Stanley Glanz were deliberately indifferent to Williams’ civil rights, ordering the county to pay the plaintiffs $10 million.

In an email March 15, The Frontier requested copies of all reviews conducted by TCSO following deaths of inmates in the jail since April 2016, when Regalado began serving as sheriff.

Last year tied with 2013 for the deadliest year in the jail since 2010. Four inmates died in the jail in 2016, including one death shortly before Regalado took office.

The latest inmate death in the jail occurred Feb. 2, when TCSO said inmate Thomas Willingham III “coded” after being placed on an EMSA gurney.

The Frontier’s request followed testimony in federal court during the civil rights trial over Williams’ death about inmate mortality reviews conducted by the Sheriff’s Office.

During testimony March 13, plaintiff’s attorney Dan Smolen asked County Commissioner Karen Keith about her statutory obligation toward the jail.

“You know what a mortality review is?” Smolen asked Keith.

“The number of souls that have passed in our jail?” she responded.

“There’s supposed to be a mortality review for every one of those people; correct?”

Keith responded that she had not looked at the mortality reviews.

“I would tell you that I am not a medical expert. We rely on the sheriff to run the jail,” she said.

County Commissioner Karen Keith talks during a meeting of the Tulsa County Criminal Justice Authority, which oversees sales taxes that fund jail operations. DYLAN GOFORTH/The Frontier

Later, Keith said: “We get reports through the Jail Trust Authority, and certainly I care what happens in there, but we do get reports from the chief in charge of the jail telling us what’s happened.”

As a member of the Tulsa County Criminal Justice Authority, Keith received brief reports about injuries and deaths in the jail each month from TCSO officials, but not copies of the full inmate mortality reviews. The authority oversees sales taxes that fund jail operations.

TCSO and its medical provider are required to conduct the mortality reviews as part of the jail’s accreditation process by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care.

In 2010, the NCCHC placed the jail on probation after a review found numerous serious violations, including failure to conduct adequate death reviews within 30 days. The jail’s medical provider at the time was Correctional Healthcare Companies Inc., of Colorado.

“There have been several inmate deaths in the past year,” the 2010 report states. “In March 2010, deaths were related to pulmonary embolism, suicide, and unknown cause. There was no psychological autopsy for the suicide. The clinical mortality reviews were poorly performed. ln June 2010, there was a death due to natural causes. No death review was conducted. The standard is not met.”

The suicide case referred to in the report involved an inmate named Clinton Labor. Records show Labor submitted a request to jail staff stating “need to talk” but Labor wasn’t seen by mental health staff for six days.

At that time, Labor denied he intended to kill himself but said he was anxious about his upcoming court hearing, jail records state. Labor hanged himself in his cell two days later.

An inmate mortality review, filed with other exhibits in the Williams case, states that the jail’s psychiatrist was not informed about Labor’s suicide on March 28, 2010.

Under “lessons learned,” the jail medical staff wrote: “Contact appropriate people when events of this magnitude occur.”

Another inmate mortality review included in court exhibits details the death of Damien Tucker, who died several weeks before Labor, on March 12, 2010.

The death review states Tucker died from a pulmonary embolus. Under “lessons learned,” the mortality review states: “Proper equipment at the ready.”

The mortality review fails to mention that jail staff waited 42 minutes before calling EMSA. Tucker’s death was among several that an independent expert hired by TCSO identified as possibly preventable.

In an interview with The Frontier, former Tulsa mayor Dewey Bartlett said he asked for mortality reviews when serving on the Tulsa County Criminal Justice Authority.

Bartlett said the Sheriff’s Office would provide basic reports on whether any injuries or deaths occurred in the jail, but normally “not too many people asked questions.”

Former Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett said he repeatedly asked the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office for copies of its inmate death reviews and was unable to receive access to them. DYLAN GOFORTH/The Frontier

When someone would ask a question about a jail death, they were told the Sheriff’s Office was waiting on a report or autopsy, Bartlett said. If a board member didn’t ask about the death the following meeting, it wouldn’t be brought up again.

Bartlett said he asked the Sheriff’s Office for copies of reports on deaths about a year ago.

“I got a lot of pushback. … They did not want to give out those reports,” he said.

Bartlett was told the Sheriff’s Office was still waiting on “some things” and had liability or privacy concerns involving HIPAA (which restricts what health information can be released about a patient), he said.

Bartlett insisted HIPAA didn’t apply to mortality reviews of jail deaths.

“Finally they did say they would put it all together and I could see it, and that was toward the end of my term,” he said.

Officials with the Sheriff’s Office told Bartlett they would assemble the reports and let him know when he could see them, but Bartlett said he doesn’t recall that happening. His term as mayor ended a couple of months later in December 2016.

“They were very concerned,” Bartlett said. “They didn’t want to give those reports out.”

In a response to The Frontier’s initial request for mortality reviews given to members of the Criminal Justice Authority, spokeswoman Casey Roebuck said: “The sheriff’s briefings were given verbally during TCCJA Meetings, not through documents.”

The Frontier responded by requesting copies of all inmate mortality reviews.

Roebuck stated: “The Oklahoma Open Records Act … does not apply to records specifically required by law to be kept confidential including records protected by a state evidentiary privilege.” 

Her email cites a state law that does not mention deaths in jails or prisons.  The law deals with peer review committees established by hospitals and other medical facilities to track patterns in patient mortality.

It states that hospitals, nursing homes and other authorized entities may provide information intended to reduce morbidity and mortality to the state Board of Health, the Oklahoma State Medical Association, the American Medical Association, hospital committees or the city-county health department. 

The Frontier has challenged TCSO’s legal basis for withholding the mortality reviews, noting that the law Roebuck cited does not appear to apply.

In addition to claiming that mortality reviews are exempt from the Open Records Act, Regalado has also asserted that nearly all videos recorded by cameras installed in the jail are off limits to public disclosure. (He has acknowledged the Sheriff’s Office must provide videos of inmates engaged in conduct that results in criminal charges.)

The Frontier has sued Regalado and the Sheriff’s Office over his refusal to release jail videos. The suit is pending in Tulsa County District Court.

TCSO has a troubled history when it comes to transparency and the Open Records Act. Glanz was forced to resign after being indicted on two misdemeanors, including refusing to release a report about former Reserve Deputy Robert Bates.

Tulsa attorney Spencer Bryan, who represents the family of Nathan Bradshaw, who died in the jail last year, said the statute cited by TCSO to withhold inmate mortality reviews “wasn’t passed to shield reports about operations of a public jail. I believe it was part of the tort reform package spearheaded by the medical lobby.”

“Even assuming it did apply, the privilege appears limited. It prohibits evidence in civil cases, which has nothing to do with an open records request. But more fundamentally, records are public unless an ORA exemption applies, and TCSO did not cite an ORA exemption.”

Bryan said the jury’s decision in the Williams case “is certainly a bellwether for jail operations in Tulsa County.”

“It clearly establishes that by 2011, every person subjected to the medical and mental health practices at the jail experienced a system that was so poorly managed that it failed to satisfy basic constitutional standards.

“Other victims like Nathan Bradshaw’s family can use this verdict to establish a baseline of unconstitutional conduct to help prove their cases, but that is secondary to what is truly an appalling indictment on the sheriff, and the community as a whole. We all failed Elliot Williams.”

Regalado and other county officials have refused repeated requests for comment about the verdict.

Attorney Clark Brewster, who represented the Sheriff’s Office in the Williams case, he has a “high confidence” that the verdict “will not stand on appeal.” Brewster took issue with evidentiary rulings during the trial as well as the jury instructions.

Smolen said Keith’s testimony during the trial showed she “doesn’t even know that she has a statutory obligation to look at these issues that are being identified.” He said Keith protested that there are 1,700 inmates in the jail and county commissioners can’t possibly review the treatment of all of them.

“I’d start by looking at the files of the ones who died and how they died. To sit there and say that the sheriff operates autonomously from the county is a very dangerous position to take,” Smolen said.

The county still faces lawsuits stemming from deaths of four inmates in the jail, in addition to a lawsuit over the rape of a mentally disabled woman in the medical unit.

An investigation by The Frontier found that one out of three inmate deaths in the jail since 2006 were identified by experts as possibly or likely preventable.

Audits and reviews from 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 concluded that the Sheriff’s Office and its private medical provider,  CHC, were failing to abide by the state’s jail standards law and accrediting agency standards governing inmate mental and medical care.

Meanwhile, TCSO left Michelle Robinette in charge of the jail and county commissioners approved multiple contract renewals with CHC until 2013, which paid the Colorado-based company about $5 million per year. Robinette has recently been promoted to a newly created civilian job coordinating inmate mental health care programs.

It’s unlikely the jail could have prevented all or even most of the deaths since 2006. Some inmates come into the county’s 1,700-bed jail with serious medical and mental health issues that are difficult to treat in a jail.

The Sheriff’s Office also failed to take important steps its own consultants said must be taken to reduce the risk of additional deaths and injuries.

The post Sheriff: Public not entitled to see inmate death reviews appeared first on The Frontier.

Jennifer Chance, left, and Derek Chance, right. Courtesy

When relatives of former Reserve Deputy Robert Bates called Gov. Mary Fallin’s office last year to ask whether Fallin would commute his sentence, the governor’s deputy general counsel, Jennifer Chance, suggested they hire her husband as a criminal defense attorney, an investigation by The Frontier has found.

Bates’ family took Chance’s advice, paying attorney Garin Derek Chance $25,000 to seek a commutation, which was denied in November. While the Pardon and Parole Board can recommend commutation, only the governor can commute a sentence, an action that is exceedingly rare.

Some members of Bates’ family grew unhappy about progress on Bates’ commutation request and contacted Fallin’s office in recent weeks, The Frontier has learned. Fallin was reportedly not aware that her general counsel had referred Bates’ family to her husband.

Meanwhile, Jennifer Chance, named Fallin’s general counsel in October, took an unexpected leave of absence two weeks ago and resigned last week, records show.

Sources close to the situation provided details about Jennifer Chance’s referral of the inquiry to her husband as well as actions by Fallin’s office after the governor learned about the incident. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity and The Frontier also gathered public records to corroborate the allegations.

Jennifer and Derek Chance could not be reached for comment for this story. A spokesman for Fallin said the governor’s office generally does not comment on personnel issues.

After Bates was convicted of second-degree manslaughter in the 2015 shooting death of Eric Harris, one of his relatives contacted the governor’s office to inquire about applying for a commutation.

Robert Bates walks into court with his wife, Charlotte, before his conviction in the death of Eric Harris. MICHAEL WYKE/The Frontier

Bates, a 73-year-old insurance executive, was a volunteer reserve deputy for the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office and a wealthy supporter of Sheriff Stanley Glanz. He claimed he intended to use his Taser on Harris, who had already been subdued, but accidentally shot him.

Bates was sentenced to four years in prison — the maximum allowable punishment — last May.

State law gives Fallin sole authority to commute a sentence, though such requests are often long-shots and rarely end in the offender being released from prison. Fallin commuted a man’s sentence from life without parole on a drug trafficking conviction to life with the possibility of parole.

Of the hundreds of requests for commutation every year, only a few make it to the governor’s desk. Bates’ application for commutation was turned down by the Pardon and Parole Board in November and again in February.

Delynn Fudge, executive director of the state Pardon and Parole Board, said 515 commutations were requested in fiscal year 2016. Of those requests, the board recommended just 28 cases to Fallin.

Of those 28, Fallin acted on only 15 applications.

“A commutation is not a get-out-of-jail-free card,” Fudge said. “It’s not an avenue to leave prison early, it’s really to correct an unjust or excessive sentence.

“That should be rare, because those (type of sentences) should not be occurring. When they do, this is the avenue for recourse.”

The state Pardon and Parole Board, which screens the applications, has a “frequently asked questions” section on its website about commutations.

“Does an applicant need a lawyer to file for a commutation?” the website states. “No, an applicant does not need a lawyer to apply for a commutation.”

When questioned about referring Bates’ family to her husband, Jennifer Chance reportedly said she consulted the state Ethics Commission and attorney general’s office in advance and received clearance.

However, officials with the AG’s office and the Ethics Commission told the governor’s office they had no documentation of any such conversation, sources told The Frontier.

During Bates’ sentencing hearing in May, several relatives testified they feared he would not survive in prison due to health issues. Bates is being held in a mental health unit of Joseph Harp Correctional Center, the largest medium-security prison in the state.

In an appeal filed Feb. 21, attorney Clark Brewster asked the state Court of Criminal Appeals to throw out Bates’ conviction and order a new trial.

The appeal cites several issues, including that jurors were allowed to watch a video in which deputies yelled “fuck your breath” and other profanities at Harris after he was shot.

Rising influence

At a time when Derek Chance was taking on increasingly high-profile cases as a defense attorney, his wife was becoming one of Oklahoma County’s top prosecutors.

Both Derek and Jennifer Chance, 42, graduated from the University of Oklahoma’s law school in 2001.

In 2011, Chance prosecuted a defendant charged in a controversial case: Jerome Ersland, an Oklahoma City pharmacist who shot and killed a would-be robber.

Surveillance video that showed Ersland standing over 16-year-old Antwon Parker and shooting him several times. Ersland argued self-defense but Chance convinced a jury otherwise and he was convicted on a murder charge.

Ersland is currently serving a life sentence and reportedly is Bates’ cellmate at Joseph Harp.

Around that same time, Chance’s husband was taking on clients including former Senate President Pro Tempore Mike Morgan, who was convicted in 2012 on bribery charges.

Two years later, Derek Chance was representing Morgan before the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, According to The Oklahoman, 

Derek Chance also represented Lawrence Watts, who was serving a 25-year prison term for first-degree manslaughter. Lawrence Watts was convicted in the 2003 death of Anthony Greco, shot outside Lawrence Watts’ restaurant in Eufaula.

Watts is the brother of J.C. Watts, a former University of Oklahoma quarterback, former commissioner for the Oklahoma Corporation Commission and former U.S. representative for Oklahoma.

Derek Chance’s efforts to get Lawrence Watts’ sentence commuted met with some success. The Pardon and Parole Board initially ruled in Watts’ favor and a member of the governor’s staff contacted the victim’s brother.

According to news accounts, Greco’s brother said commuting the sentence would be “a slap in the face” to the family. Fallin later declined to alter Lawrence Watts’ prison term.

Watts’ crime is among the state’s crimes requiring offenders to serve 85 percent of their sentences.

Derek Chance also represented Luis Ruiz, a Bethany man who was charged with the mutilation murder of Carina Saunders. Ruiz was initially suspected of the crime and was held in jail for eight months before the charges against him were dropped in a scandal that rocked the Bethany Police Department and ended in the loss of several jobs.

In 2012, Derek Chance represented University of Tulsa Athletic Director Ross Parmley after Parmley was suspended for gambling on sports, an NCAA violation. Parmley was eventually fired from the university.

In 2013, Jennifer Chance left the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office to join Fallin’s staff as a deputy general counsel.

Steve Mullins, general counsel at the time, resigned last year, several months after testifying before a grand jury investigating a lethal injection drug mixup.

In October, Jennifer Chance was promoted from her position as Fallin’s deputy general counsel to general counsel, the top legal counselor to the governor. Her annual salary following the promotion rose from just more than $81,000 a year to $95,000, one of the largest salaries in the governor’s office.

“Jennifer Chance is a highly-skilled attorney who has proven herself more than capable of filling one of the most important roles in state government as the governor’s general counsel,” Fallin said in a release at the time of the promotion.

Five months later, Chance would resign from the office.

“After prayerful consideration, I have decided to pursue other opportunities,” Chance wrote in her March 8 resignation letter. “It has been my privilege and honor to serve as your general counsel, and I wish you continued success.”

Jennifer Chance actually had taken a sudden leave of absence two weeks earlier.

The attorney general’s office contacted attorneys for The Frontier on Feb. 23, stating that Chance was taking an unexpected leave of absence.

The email related to a planned hearing in an open records lawsuit filed by The Frontier’s editor and her former employer, the Tulsa World, over the 2014 botched execution of Clayton Lockett. (A judge has ordered Fallin to turn over emails her office has withheld for review.)

At the same time his wife’s job was in flux, Derek Chance was also facing changes in employment.

Internet searches of his name turn up references to the Babbit, Mitchell & Chance law firm in Oklahoma City as well as images showing his name on the outside of building.

LinkedIn profiles for Derek Chance and an attorney still with the firm, Greg Mitchell, also list the firm’s name as Babbit Mitchell Chance.

The law firm is now called Babbit, Mitchell & Ogle, and employees there told The Frontier on Wednesday that Chance’s departure from the firm was “recent.”

Derek Chance appears to now be working for himself. His website, www.derekchancelaw.com, features a glitzy image of high-rise buildings in downtown Oklahoma City. His address is listed as 416 NW 23rd Street, a small one-story, gray building across the street from Cheever’s Cafe, a well-known Oklahoma City eatery.

Bates’ family hopes for leniency

The commutation efforts are not the family’s first efforts to get Bates out of prison. Attempts began before Bates even entered Oklahoma Department of Corrections custody.

During Bates’ sentencing hearing last May, he was joined by his wife, Charlotte, and Brewster in arguing that a prison term would effectively be a death sentence for the aging former insurance executive.

Bates, who had been held in the Tulsa County Jail at that point for less than two weeks, said that his failing health would likely mean that he would die in prison.

His family pleaded for leniency, but District Judge William Musseman eventually sided with jurors who recommended Bates spend four years in prison.

“Mr. Bates on that day killed a person because he didn’t know what weapon he had in his hands,” Musseman said at the time. “Period … He put himself in that position voluntarily.”

Next month, Bates will be eligible for a one-year judicial review of his sentence.

Deborah Glanz, the wife of former Tulsa County Sheriff Stanley Glanz, said in a Facebook post last year that Stanley Glanz had spoken with Pete Regan, Oklahoma Transportation commissioner for District 8, in an attempt to reach Fallin on Bates’ behalf.

“Since the campaign is over, Stanley thinks we can get something done,” Deborah Glanz wrote in the post.

She and her husband were far from alone in their efforts. Court records show several letters have been written to Musseman since that sentencing in an effort to help Bates.

Bates’ daughter Leslie McCray wrote Musseman a letter last December asking for leniency and consideration of a judicial review, saying her goal was “to see (Bates) through to the other side of these circumstances.”

McCrary wrote that while at the Lexington Correctional Facility (all new DOC inmates go through assessment there before being transferred to a longer-term prison,) Bates’ cell was “attacked by several prisoners in an attempted assassination.”

Department of Corrections officials have not confirmed the alleged attack, but McCrary repeated the allegation in another letter to the Pardon and Parole Board.

Several other letters were attached to a commutation request made on Bates’ behalf.

Diane Dixon, who said in her letter that she worked for Bates for “over 14 years,” asked for her former boss to eventually be paroled.

She said knew Bates as a “good and decent man,” and said that a week before the Harris shooting, Bates was in Sand Springs providing food and water “at his own expense” to tornado survivors.

Another letter, written by an Inola woman named Margarett Jackson, noted Bates was known for “anonymously donating money and going out of his way to help others.”

A pre-sentence investigation attached to a commutation request filed on Bates’ behalf contains pages of anecdotes of the former insurance executive providing for the less-fortunate.

Under “Offender Characteristics,” the investigator mentioned incidents where Bates paid for items for a pregnant waitress who could not afford “anything for (her) baby,” or where Bates rented an apartment and purchased furniture for a young homeless woman and child.

Bates has expressed remorse for his role in Harris’ death. In an interview with NBC News, he called the shooting a “horrible mistake.” Bates told NBC he would like to tell Harris’ family “that I’m so sorry that it happened.”

“It keeps me up at night. I can’t sleep,” he said, crying.

In the “Acceptance of Responsibility” section of the attached pre-sentence investigation, it states that Bates “has accepted responsibility (for the Harris shooting) from the moment it happened.”

“He feels horrible about the death of (Harris.) He prays to God for forgiveness many times each day.”

The Pardon and Parole Board supplied both commutation to The Frontier following an Open Records Act request. The difference between the two applications is stark.

Derek Chance filed the first application last September, while McCrary filed the subsequent application on her own last December.

The application Chance filled out is at times bare-bones. Under “Account of Offense,” where the applicant is supposed to provide a detailed explanation of the crime committed, Chance appears to have merely copied and pasted the statement Bates gave to investigators in the days after the shooting.

Other attachments appear to be scanned documents that were written by Bates’ criminal defense lawyers.

Also, in the request filed by Chance, under a section where the offender is required to list aliases or other names, Chance typed “n/a.”

Bates, who was adopted as a young child, was born “Andrew Anderson,” something he acknowledges in the request compiled months later by McCrary.

“I was born Andrew Anderson at birth,” Bates writes. “I was adopted (by) Les and Mary Bates and my name was changed to Robert Charles Bates. I have been Robert Charles Bates since the adoption took place.”

By comparison, McCrary’s request is much more detailed, including personal details and several statements from Bates himself.

There are more discrepancies. Chance wrote that Bates married his first wife, who he identifies as “Francis Cruce,” in 1962. Bates’ first wife was actually named “Francey Cruce,” and McCrary’s request notes the two were married in 1964.

Questions remain

It’s unclear what, if anything, will occur as a result of Jennifer Chance referring legal business to her husband. It’s also unclear whether Derek Chance has been asked to repay the family’s $25,000 or if they have retained another attorney to continue their quest for commutation.

Ashley Kemp, executive director of the state Ethics Commission, said she could not comment on whether any complaints have been filed related to Jennifer Chance.

“We have subpoena power if a case is opened. We can make a determination if a violation was committed, can enter into settlement discussions or file a lawsuit in district court,” Kemp said.

“Only district court can make violation determination; we don’t determine that. We just say what happened.”

The post Resignation of Fallin’s general counsel tied to efforts to free Robert Bates appeared first on The Frontier.

“Based on the totality of the investigation, that is no longer my position,” she told a federal jury Monday.

Robinette, who served as Tulsa County’s interim sheriff for three months last year, also said during her 2013 deposition that jail staff who dealt with Williams failed to follow training and required procedures.

But Monday, Robinette said: “I don’t believe my officers essentially did anything wrong. We did what we were required to do.”

Former Sheriff Stanley Glanz and current Sheriff Vic Regalado are defendants in the lawsuit by Williams’ estate, alleging his Eighth and 14th Amendment rights were violated. The jail’s former medical provider, Correctional Healthcare Companies Inc., settled with Williams’ estate and is no longer a defendant.

[Read The Frontier’s coverage of the civil trial involving Elliott Williams’ death.]

Williams, a 37-year-old veteran with no felony record, died from apparent complications of a broken neck after languishing on a jail cell floor for days without food or water because he was paralyzed, records show. He was arrested by Owasso police after suffering a mental breakdown because he believed his wife planned to leave him.

In 2013, Robinette said during her deposition that Williams wasn’t properly fed or hydrated during his last days alive in Tulsa’s jail.

“He was given a styrofoam cup of water placed at his shoulder that he never drank that was kicked over by a doctor and never replaced,” her deposition states.

“And no time during that video did I see him go to them and eat any of the food out of them. None of my detention officers took the time to open the door to verify that he was eating or assist him any,” she said then.

Attorney Clark Brewster and Sheriff Vic Regalado sit at the defense table during testimony over Elliott Williams’ death in the jail. Courtroom sketch by Evelyn Petroski

Monday — the 14th day of a civil trial in Tulsa’s federal court over Williams’ death in the jail — Robinette also walked back that statement.

His treatment was not inhumane, she said.

“There were Styrofoam trays and a cup of water” in his cell, she told attorney Dan Smolen, representing Williams’ estate.

Robinette did not address the fact that jail video shows that Williams, paralyzed from a broken neck, could not reach the food and water placed just outside of his reach. His autopsy showed he had a pattern of dehydration when he died.

Last month, TCSO named Robinette as mental health coordinator at the jail, a newly created position. She will supervise mental health services for inmates in the jail’s new mental health pods, financed by a sales tax approved by voters.

Robinette said during testimony Monday that she was verbally counseled by then-Undersheriff Brian Edwards following Williams’ death.

“He believed there to be a lack of leadership, a lack of control and that I had dropped the ball” related to Williams, she testified.

U.S. District Judge John Dowdell, who is presiding over the trial, admonished Regalado Monday while County Commissioner Karen Keith testified about her opinion of a video showing Williams’ last 51 hours alive.

Keith said when watching the video, “I was disturbed by what I saw. I’m sure all of you were disturbed likewise.”

Smolen was asking Keith what she found disturbing about the video.

“I don’t think we need to tell everybody what was in the video,” she retorted.

“I think that it’s important that we need to talk about it, to make sure that it never happens again, don’t you?” Smolen replied.

“One second,” Dowdell said, stopping the testimony and pointing at the sheriff, sitting at the defense table nearby.

“Mr. Regalado, stop that,” Dowdell said.

“What?” Regalado replied.

“Laughing.”

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t laughing. But my apologies,” the sheriff replied.

Tulsa County Sheriff Vic Regalado, left, leaves the Page Belcher Federal Courthouse on Feb. 23. Casey Roebuck, TCSO PIO, is centered. Meredith Baker, TCSO general counsel, is right. DYLAN GOFORTH/The Frontier

Turning to Keith, Smolen asked: “Do you think this is funny, like the new sheriff does?”

“Please,” Keith responded, in an annoyed tone.

“You don’t, do you?” he pressed her.

“Hardly.”

During her testimony, Keith also repeatedly denied that as a county commissioner, she had responsibility for the quality of medical care given to inmates in the 1700-bed jail.

As a county commissioner since 2008, Keith is one of three elected officials who signed off on nearly all purchases and contracts by TCSO for the jail. Keith and commissioners Ron Peters and John Smaligo also serve on the Tulsa County Criminal Justice Authority, which oversees sales taxes funding the jail.

She acknowledged that state law gives county commissioners oversight of the jail but repeatedly said county commissioners rely on the sheriff to operate the jail.

Keith testified for about three hours Monday on Williams’ treatment in the jail, as well the county commissioners’ statutory obligations to ensure inmates’ well-being.

Karen Keith.courtesy

Keith said she watched a small portion of the video depicting Williams’ last hours of life in Tulsa’s jail. A 12-minute video condenses the last five days of his life.

Defense attorneys have claimed the video failed to capture everything that happened, such as Williams eating, drinking and moving. Despite being challenged, they’ve yet to offer any proof of that claim and Dowdell has allowed the video as evidence.

Keith said she only saw a small portion of the video, but said it was “difficult to watch.”

Asked whether she reported her concerns to the District Attorney’s Office after seeing the video, Keith said Williams’ death was already under investigation.

Keith testified she asked a few questions of jail staff and Robinette, but she couldn’t recall any specifics.

“I think everyone was upset,” she said.

Keith said the extent of her involvement in overseeing the jail was a tour that the three county commissioners take each year, as required by state law.

Smolen noted that state law says: “The person responsible for the administration of such jail shall provide the county commissioner with the name, age, and basis for incarceration of each prisoner, and if it appears to the commissioners that any provisions of law have been violated or neglected, they shall give notice to the district attorney of the county.”

Keith said she did not notify the DA’s office about any concerns regarding Elliott Williams because “it was already under investigation.”

TCSO’s investigation resulted in no criminal charges and no penalties for the jail’s medical contractor, paid about $5 million per year to provide doctors, nurses and other medical staff to care for inmates.

Asked whether she knew how many people did in the jail since 2005, Keith said she didn’t know.

The Frontier analyzed records from the state jail inspector, the state medical examiner’s office and other sources shows that since 2006, at least 30 people have died in Tulsa’s jail or shortly after being transported to hospitals from the jail.

Experts and medical records state that outcomes for at least 10 of those people could have changed with proper medical and mental health care. The number could be higher, as several inmate deaths resulted in claims or lawsuits quickly settled by the jail’s medical provider before detailed records were produced.

“Just so the jury’s aware, you’ve not ever read even a single mortality review of an inmate who’s died in the jail; correct?” Smolen asked Keith.

“No, sir,” she answered.

Keith said she isn’t a medical expert and the county commissioners “rely on the sheriff to run the jail.”

However, she said she gets reports of deaths and other incidents through the county’s criminal justice authority, which administers sales taxes that fund the jail.

Commissioners also get basic information from the jail on inmates in paper form. Keith said she skims through the data but looking at all of it would be “nearly impossible.” About 29,000 people are booked in Tulsa’s jail each year.

Keith testified commissioners are fulfilling their statutory obligations pertaining to the jail.

Asked who’s responsible for ensuring the jail has adequate health care, Keith replied the sheriff.

Despite issues in Tulsa’s jail, Keith said she’s still proud of the facility. Since it was built about 15 years ago, David L. Moss had been on the “cutting edge” and the sheriff’s office is “doing progressive work,” she said.

She noted while Glanz was sheriff, he was honored with several national awards.

“He was also honored with removal from office, correct?” Smolen asked.

In 2015, Glanz pleaded guilty to willful violation of the law, a misdemeanor. Glanz also pleaded no contest to refusal to perform official duty because he withheld an internal report about Reserve Deputy Robert Bates, a wealthy friend of the sheriff’s, requested by reporters.

When the charges were announced, the longtime sheriff resigned.

Smolen also pointed out how numerous audits and reviews found widespread problems in the jail’s medical system. Though Tulsa County paid for the auditors, Keith said she was unsure if the Sheriff’s Office followed the auditors’ recommendations.

Again, she said, county commissioners rely on the sheriff to do his job.

Multiple reviews of the jails by accrediting agencies and experts from 2007-2011 found a wide array of issues the Sheriff’s Office was urged to address. One consultant strongly recommended in 2009 TCSO hire a registered nurse with administrative experience to oversee the jail’s medical contractor.

Glan testified earlier in the trial that he lacked the money to fill the position because his request was denied by the county commission. However, Keith said she has no memory of such a request.

During cross-examination defense attorney Clark Brewster reminded Keith that Glanz requested those audits because he wanted to see the jail’s medical care improve.

“We had all become acutely aware that our county jails had become the de facto mental health providers, and really that’s — that’s true across the country. A lot of — and particularly here in the state, we closed down all those mental health facilities, and the sheriff early on recognized that that is not the best way for us to take care of our
mentally ill,” Keith testified.

“So in an effort, we decided we wanted to do something that was pretty cutting-edge. I say ‘we.’ This is the sheriff and some of his staff who thought these mental health pods would be a good thing for us to do. … I’m really grateful that they’ll be opening soon.”

Regalado also testified briefly Monday, saying TCSO had “allowed or given the ability of a detention officer” to override jail medical staff in some situations. Smolen pointed to an existing policy, in place before Regalado’s election, that allowed such discretion.

Smolen also asked Regalado his opinion of Williams’ treatment in the jail and whether he was treated humanely.

“It’s hard to make that determination,” Regalado replied, “because I don’t have all the evidence.”

Regalado has not been present for all of the testimony and at times has dispatched his undersheriff, George Brown, to attend in his place.

The trial continues Tuesday for its 15th day, with continued testimony from Robinette. The plaintiffs are expected to rest their case soon and the defense will begin calling witnesses.

After one juror was dismissed last week due to scheduling conflicts, there are four men and four women serving on the jury.

The post Robinette walks back statement that Williams’ death ‘lacked human decency’ appeared first on The Frontier.

Attorney Dan Smolen, left, questions former Tulsa County Sheriff Stanley Glanz. Courtroom sketch by Evelyn Petroski

Though most of Monday’s testimony has focused on whether systemic failures were responsible for Elliott Williams’ 2011 death in Tulsa’s jail, former Sheriff Stanley Glanz also was forced to explain his use of a racially offensive term — “negronoid” — and defend his claim that he’s an honest person.

At one point, Glanz appeared to be walking back his 2016 guilty plea involving theft of county funds — accepting a $600 car allowance while driving a county vehicle — but attorney Dan Smolen, representing Williams’ estate, pushed the issue.

“I pled guilty to using a police car” for non-police business, he said at first. When pressed for details, Glanz told Smolen: “I don’t know the specifics of the charge.”

“Sheriff you pled guilty to a wilful violation of the law, correct?” Smolen reminded him.

“Of this misdemeanor, yes.”

“When you took that plea deal, you swore under oath … Last week you told the jury, at least you insinuated, that you pled guilty because you couldn’t afford to hire a lawyer to defend you but that’s not what this says,” Smolen replied, holding up a copy of Glanz’s plea agreement, for which the former sheriff remains on probation.

Glanz agreed that the plea agreement states he pleaded guilty because he believed there was a chance he could be found guilty given the facts.

(There was no discussion of the second charge Glanz was indicted on, to which he pleaded no contest, involving his order to withhold an internal affairs report about reserve deputy Robert Bates.)

Glanz appeared eager to move on from the topic but the questions didn’t get any less pointed during his third day on the stand in federal court for a civil trial over Williams’ death.

Smolen referenced a deposition taken one year ago wherein Glanz said he didn’t have an issue with black inmates being called “negronoids” or “negroids.”

Glanz testified Monday he said in the deposition he didn’t have a problem with using the term for black inmates because the FBI used it to describe black people in the 60s or 70s.

Several cases brought by black former employees of Tulsa’s jail cost Tulsa County almost $1 million to defend and settle.

Federal court documents filed in the Northern District of Oklahoma filed in the discrimination cases show jail employees would mark an “N” or a “W” next to inmates’ names to indicate whether they were black or white.

Glanz and current Sheriff Vic Regalado are the defendants in a lawsuit alleging Williams’ Eighth and 14th amendment rights were violated when he was allowed to languish on his jail cell floor without eating or drinking for days before dying from complications of a broken neck. The jail’s former medical provider, Correctional Healthcare Companies Inc. (CHC), settled with Williams’ estate and is no longer a defendant.

Williams begged for help and repeatedly told jail staff he couldn’t move and that his neck was broken. However detention and medical staff concluded that Williams was faking paralysis, although testimony and records indicate they did no medical tests to confirm their assumption. Williams was placed in a cell equipped with video for 51 hours and never moved his feet on his own. He lacked motor control in his arms to grasp the trays of food jailers tossed into his cell and spilled the single cup of water he was given.

Williams’ siblings have attended most of the testimony, often wiping tears away as jurors view the silent, black and white video of their naked brother lying on a soiled “suicide blanket.”

On Monday, Williams’ sisters sat stone faced, glaring at Glanz as he repeatedly said he did all that he could as sheriff to provide good medical care to inmates.

“A lot of (deaths) occur because of their lifestyle and the condition that people find themselves in,” Glanz said.

Two medical experts have testified they believe Williams’ death could have easily been avoided if he received adequate medical care. Exactly how Williams broke his neck is unclear. An Owasso police officer slammed Williams to the floor by his head and neck in the jail’s booking area.

Another inmate said he believed Williams rammed his head into his cell door. However, Smolen has questioned why that claim did not surface until two months after Williams’ death, Oct. 27, 2011.

To prevail, however, Williams’ estate will need to show more than an isolated failure involved one inmate, no matter how horrific his last days appear on the video. Attorneys for the estate must prove the Sheriff’s Office was deliberately indifferent to Williams’ constitutional rights and that they were on notice of issues at the jail that were a direct cause of the deprivation of his rights.

In an effort to show a long-standing pattern that ended in Williams’ death and stretched beyond, Smolen pelted the sheriff with questions about why seven audits and reviews have found widespread failures in the agency he ran for seven terms.

Glanz’s second day of testimony Thursday was filled with instances in which the former sheriff was forced to confront the failings of his own agency, as documented by the slew of audits and reviews.

Glanz agreed that he could not name any policy or procedure that changed as a result of the the studies’ findings in 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2011. The audits found failures in nearly every area of the jail’s medical and mental health care, including a finding just weeks before Williams’ death of a “prevailing attitude among clinic staff of indifference.”

Smolen asked the sheriff if he had any evidence to refute a key statistic: Out of 64 deficiencies cited by government agencies and consultants since 2007, at least 38 were repeat violations. Glanz has repeatedly claimed that any time a deficiency was found by an review, the jail’s medical provider corrected the issue.

Glanz has implied that issues with the jail’s medical care were the fault of the health provider’ instead of his responsibility.

The Sheriff’s Office signed a contract with CHC to make sure the provider was responsible for the medical care in the jail, Glanz said Monday.

“They’re the ones who were actually responsible for the standards,” he said. Glanz noted he wanted the “best care for our inmates.”

However, Smolen has pointed to the Sheriff’s Office contract with its medical provider, the state Constitution and Glanz’s own prior statements in an effort to refute that claim.

A 2009 review of the jail’s medical care states overseeing medical care within the jail and ensuring quality care is provided is the responsibility of jail staff.

“The Sheriff/Director of Corrections/Jail Administrators of local detention centers whether he/she privatizes health services, are ultimately the person responsible for the delivery of health services,” consultant Betty Gondles’ report states.

Gondles’ report raised issues with the a lack of training and orientation for new health staff, nurses failing to document delivery of health services to inmates and delays in inmates receiving medications.

When Smolen reminded Glanz that Gondles’ report stated he was ultimately responsible, Glanz said that was “correct.”

The report noted many of the issues stemmed from a “lack of understanding of correctional health care issues by jail administration and contract oversight and monitoring of the private provider.” It recommended a bureau of health services to be established and a director of health services be hired to overlook the contract.

Once the measure to hire a contract monitor was taken, Gondles wrote she believed “many of the issues outlined in this report will be resolved.”

However, the Sheriff’s Office didn’t hire a medical professional to oversee the contract until 2014. When nurse Angela Mariani was hired to serve as a watchdog, she filed no reports in two years regarding inmates’ deaths and only one report about the company’s medical care.

Mariani was also married to Capt. Scott Dean, a shift captain in the jail supervising more than 100 detention officers, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Glanz testified Monday he didn’t recall the name of who was hired to oversee the contract and was “not familiar” with who her husband was.

Dr. Howard Roemer’s November 2011 report questions whether the deaths of five inmates in 2010 could have been prevented with better medical and mental health care.

Roemer, whose report took place one month after Williams died, was not hired as a result of Williams’ death in the jail, Glanz testified Monday. The Sheriff’s Office had already decided to bring Roemer in one month before Williams died.

Asked why Roemer didn’t review Williams’ death as part of his review, Glanz said he didn’t know. There was an OSBI investigation, as well as a thorough internal investigation, he said.

“(Williams) injured himself and no one discovered that injury and that’s what caused his death,” Glanz said.

Last week, Smolen asked Glanz whether he knew how many deaths occurred in the jail when the agency wasn’t following jail standards, policies or the recommendations of auditors, Glanz said he didn’t know.

One of the cases Roemer reviewed was Damien Tucker. On March 12, 2010, Tucker was having breathing difficulties in David L. Moss. He had been reporting chest pains that week, according to Roemer’s report.

Tucker went into cardiac arrest, but an ambulance wasn’t called until 42 minutes later, the report says. The outcome might not have differed if proper protocol would have been followed, but Tucker would have had better a chance at living, the audit states.

“Yes, if they would have acted more quickly, maybe he would have survived,” Glanz testified Monday.

Another case Roemer reviewed was Linda Henshaw. Henshaw, 51 died in Tulsa’s jail June 18, 2010, after going into cardiac arrest.

Sixteen days prior, she was discharged from a hospital and admitted into a jail medical unit.

It doesn’t appear medical staff was monitoring her blood sugar or blood pressure, which Henshaw’s hospital medical records noted as elevated, Roemer’s report states.

The antibiotics jail medical staff gave Henshaw were not recommended for a patient with her condition, and her low blood sugar was consistent with sepsis and/or worsening renal insufficiency making insulin last longer in her system, the report says.

“Mortality Review discusses some of these issues, but does not address inadequate system protocols, and realtime auditing of protocols, for treatment, monitoring, referral,” the audit states.

“Without such protocols, risk of similar episodes for other inmates, in the future, is quite high.”

Smolen asked Glanz whether the lack of medical staff monitoring Henshaw reminded him of Williams’ case after Williams began complaining of paralysis.

“This is a totally different case,” Glanz said of Henshaw.

An investigation by The Frontier found that at least 30 people have died in Tulsa’s jail or shortly after being transported to a hospital since 2006. Of those, Williams’ death is among 10 cases identified by medical experts as possibly or likely preventable if jail and medical staff followed jail standards, auditors’ recommendations and their own policies.

That number — representing one out of three inmate deaths in the last decade — is likely higher due to several factors. According to The Frontier’s investigation, some detention and medical staff had a history of falsifying medical records to cover up preventable deaths.

Jail staff were also cited in one audit with failure to conduct adequate death reviews. A former medical administrator has also stated that CHC staff sometimes pretended to revive dead inmates so that death could be pronounced outside the jail.

The reliability of Sheriff’s Office records — and its version of how inmates died — has been a recurring element during the trial’s eight days of testimony.

Billy McKelvey, a former Sheriff’s Office captain, testified Feb. 27 the agency had a history of faking and altering records.

McKelvey testified his investigation into Williams’ death found detention officer Carmelita Norris reported Williams was able to feed himself breakfast the morning he died. Video of Williams showed he was dead at the time her note indicated he was eating breakfast, Smolen said.

On Monday, Smolen asked Glanz about the Sheriff’s Office’s history of falsifying records. The former sheriff said in no circumstance should records ever be falsified.

Asked whether an employee should be fired for falsifying records, Glanz said it “depends on the situation” and a thorough investigation would need to be conducted first.

Elliott Williams trial coverage

The post Glanz testifies on jail deaths, explains use of racially offensive term appeared first on The Frontier.