The already busy death chamber at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary is about to log its busiest month ever. But not even a record eight executions causes much stir in this strongly pro-death penalty state.
Texas set a record with 40 executions in 2000. Oklahoma, with one-sixth the population, ranked second with 11. This month it will tie Texas' one-month record when it sends seven men and one woman to be put to death, according to the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C.
Reforms that have shortened the appeals process and the fact that five of the condemned inmates have been on death row for more than 11 years have contributed to the surge.
Johnnie Cabrera, chairwoman of the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, sees little outcry: 'People really don't care,' she said. 'It's out of sight, out of mind.'
Oklahoma is so strongly pro-death penalty that even Gov. Frank Keating, a Roman Catholic, called the pope's stance against it wrong.
Still, the busy January execution pace combined with a national re-examination of death penalty errors has opponents speaking out. State leaders of Catholic, Episcopal and United Methodist faiths have called for a death penalty moratorium.
More than 3,700 people in the United States are waiting on death row.
Wanda Jean Allen has been there for more than 11 years for killing her roommate outside a police station in 1988. On Jan. 11, she is scheduled to become the first woman executed in Oklahoma since statehood.
Oklahoma State Penitentiary Warden Gary Gibson has given the command
'Let the execution begin' more than 20 times. But he has never faced a month like January and said he plans to watch his employees closely for signs of fatigue.
'It's a trying situation for everybody,' he said.