For just the third time in seven years, Oklahoma has executed a death row inmate (article available here).
Donald Anthony Grant was pronounced dead by lethal injection at 10:16 a.m. Thursday morning. He is the third death row inmate to be killed since the state resumed capital punishment in October after a six-year moratorium. He was 46.
Grant was sentenced to death for the 2001 shooting deaths of Del City hotel workers Brenda McElyea and Felecia Smith during an armed robbery.
Grant's lawyers argued that although their client admitted to a 2001 double murder, he shouldn't be executed because he "is severely mentally ill."
Most states no longer carry out executions — 23 have abolished the death penalty and three more have governor-imposed moratoriums.
Utah could be next. A repeal bill was filed there in January.
Virginia abolished the death penalty last year, Colorado abolished it in 2020 and New Hampshire abolished it in 2019.