Apr. 28—In arguments to end the death penalty, Oklahoma is exhibit one. Its history includes:

—Botched executions. Clayton Lockett in 2014, for example, and John Grant in 2021.

—Unauthorized drugs. Charles Warner told his executioners in 2015: "It feels like acid," and "My body is on fire."

—Exonerations. Curtis McCarty was released in 2007 after a judge ordered that the charges against him be dismissed. Clifford Henry Bowen was held in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary under three death sentences for over five years before the U.S. Court of Appeals overturned his conviction in 1986. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, "Bowen ... provided twelve alibi witnesses to confirm that he was 300 miles from the crime scene just one hour prior to the crime, and could not be linked by any physical evidence to the crime."

Still unconvinced? Consider the case of Richard Glossip, who now faces his ninth execution date. He was convicted twice of first-degree murder in a 1997 murder-for-hire plot.

Recently state Rep. Kevin McDugle, R-Broken Arrow — who supports the death penalty — said the case casts such doubt on Oklahoma's ongoing use of the death penalty that if Glossip is executed he would "fight to end the death penalty in Oklahoma."

This week, the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted to deny clemency for Glossip. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals also denied requests from Attorney General Gentner Drummond and Glossip's defense team for new hearings. Those requests were prompted by two separate independent reviews finding problems with the case.

"Public confidence in the death penalty requires that these cases receive the highest standard of reliability," Drummond said in a press release. "While the state has not questioned the integrity of previous death penalty cases, the Glossip conviction is very different. I believe it would be a grave injustice to execute an individual whose trial conviction was beset by a litany of errors."

Don Knight, Glossip's attorney, said: "The national law firm Reed Smith undertook a thorough, independent review of this case and concluded that no reasonable juror who heard all the evidence, which has never been presented, would have found Mr. Glossip guilty of murder for hire. Then, an independent counsel appointed by Attorney General Drummond conducted another comprehensive review of Mr. Glossip's case and documented multiple instances of error that cast serious doubt on Mr. Glossip's conviction. It would be a travesty for Oklahoma to move forward with the execution of an innocent man."

The arguments against use of the death penalty are incontrovertible.

We know it is not a deterrent.

We know questions of race, poverty and impaired intellectual ability raise serious doubts about it.

And we know innocent people are being wrongly sent to death row.

Questions about whether the death penalty can be applied fairly, evenly and accurately have been answered. It cannot.

There are moral, religious and practical reasons to stop all executions in Oklahoma — and Missouri as well — starting with the fact that at least 185 people who were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death in this country were later exonerated. In fact, as Hannah Cox, senior national manager for Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, told this editorial board last year, one person on death row has been exonerated for every eight who have been executed in recent decades.

The time has come to end the use of the death penalty.