The death penalty remains one of the most consequential and controversial powers exercised by the American criminal justice system. For more than two centuries, states and the federal government have used different methods to carry out death sentences, moving from public hangings to electrocution, gas chambers and, eventually, lethal injection.
In recent years, shortages of execution drugs, botched procedures and court challenges have pushed some states back toward methods once considered obsolete, including firing squads and gas asphyxiation. Oklahoma has been at the center of that history.
Since the state carried out its first recorded execution in 1915, Oklahoma has used several methods and has executed hundreds of people. Through 2025, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections reported 212 executions at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.
Three additional executions occurred in 2026, bringing the total to 215 through Aug. 13, 2026. The 215 executions include 212 men and three women. Eighty-two were carried out by electrocution, one by hanging and 132 by lethal injection.
The final Oklahoma electrocution occurred in 1966.
The modern American death penalty began taking its present form after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down existing death-penalty statutes in 1972, finding that the way capital punishment was being administered was unconstitutional. States began rewriting their laws, and Oklahoma enacted its current death-penalty statute in 1977, making lethal injection the state's primary method.
Oklahoma's first lethal-injection execution was Charles Troy Coleman on Sept. 10, 1990. Before lethal injection, the electric chair dominated Oklahoma's execution history.
A condemned prisoner was strapped into a specially constructed chair while electrodes were attached to the body, traditionally to the head and leg. A powerful electrical current was then sent through the body.
Oklahoma's 82 electrocutions represent nearly four decades of the state's execution history, but the method eventually gave way to lethal injection as the preferred approach.
Hanging also has a place in Oklahoma's history, although it was rarely used when com- pared with electrocution. The state's official historical figures identify one hanging among the 215 executions.The single hanging involved a federal prisoner rather than representing Oklahoma's routine modern state execution method.
Lethal injection was intended to present a different image of capital punishment: controlled, clinical and less visibly violent. Instead of an electric current or a drop from a gallows, the prisoner is restrained on a gurney and drugs are administered intravenously.
The state's most notorious modern execution was that of Clayton Lockett on April 29, 2014. Lockett's execution became a national example of the potential problems surrounding lethal injection.
The intravenous line was difficult to establish and the state ultimately placed the line in the groin. The execution drugs did not operate as officials expected and Lockett continued moving and showing signs of consciousness.
His execution was halted but he died approximately 43 minutes after the drugs were initially administered. The episode led to a nationwide examination of Oklahoma's execution procedures and prompted further legal challenges.
The important point when comparing Oklahoma's lethal injection procedures of a decade ago with those used today is that the basic threedrug concept has not disappeared. Oklahoma's current protocol still uses midazolam, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride.
State officials announced in 2020 that the state would resume executions using an updated version of its previous protocol while retaining those three drugs. That means the difference between Oklahoma's older lethal-injection system and today's system is not simply that the state abandoned the drugs used during the controversial executions of the past.
Instead, Oklahoma changed elements of its protocol, training and procedures following the problems surrounding earlier executions. The state also faced significant challenges obtaining execution drugs, as pharmaceutical companies increasingly restricted their products from being used in executions.
Across the country, drug shortages and pharmaceutical restrictions have forced states to reconsider how executions are carried out. Currently the injection is a three separate chemical cocktail.
Midazolam is a sedative in the benzodiazepine family. In ordinary medical settings, it can be used for sedation and to help produce unconsciousness before medical procedures.
In Oklahoma's execution protocol, it is intended to render the prisoner unconscious before the other drugs are administered. Its role is particularly important because the drugs that follow are not intended to provide anesthesia or pain relief.
Vecuronium bromide is a neuromuscular blocking drug. It prevents muscles from receiving the signals necessary for normal movement. In an execution, its intended purpose is to cause paralysis, including paralysis of the muscles involved in breathing.
Importantly, vecuronium itself does not cause unconsciousness. That is why the first drug, midazolam, is intended to have rendered the prisoner unconscious before the paralytic is administered.
Potassium chloride is the final component. In sufficiently large amounts, it disrupts the heart's electrical activity and causes cardiac arrest.
It is not a sedative and does not function as a painkiller. The intended sequence is therefore straightforward: midazolam produces unconsciousness, vecuronium produces paralysis and stops normal respiratory muscle function and potassium chloride causes the heart to stop.
The distinction matters because a lethal-injection protocol is dependent upon each drug doing a very different job. If the prisoner is not adequately unconscious, the paralytic can prevent outward signs of distress while the person may still potentially experience what is happening. That concern has been a major part of litigation surrounding midazolam and Oklahoma's execution procedures.
Oklahoma's history with lethal injection also includes another notorious problem involving execution drugs. In the case of Charles Warner, officials acknowledged that an incorrect chemical was used during his 2015 execution, when potassium acetate was administered instead of the potassium chloride specified in the protocol.
The incident, together with Lockett's execution and continuing concerns about drug sourcing and administration, helped fuel years of litigation over Oklahoma's deathpenalty system. Lethal injection remains the predominant execution method in the United States but it is no longer the only method being seriously considered.
States continue to authorize electrocution, gas, firing squads and other alternatives. In 2024, Alabama became the first state to use nitrogen gas to carry out executions in the modern era.
Nitrogen hypoxia has since become part of the debate over alternative execution methods, while firing squads have also returned to the national conversation. Oklahoma is among the states that authorize a firing squad as an alternative method.
The renewed interest in older methods has been driven in large part by the difficulty of obtaining lethal-injection drugs. Pharmaceutical companies generally do not want their medications associated with executions, leaving corrections departments to seek alternative suppliers and, in some cases, compounded drugs.
That has created an unusual situation in American capital punishment: a method originally adopted because it was supposed to be modern and controlled has itself become difficult to administer, while methods from earlier generations have returned to state statutes.
As of August 2026, Oklahoma's death row holds 25 inmates, 24 men and one woman. The youngest is 33 years old and the oldest is 72. The current population includes 11 African American inmates, nine Caucasian inmates, three Native American inmates and two Hispanic inmates.
Two of the inmates on the current death-row roster have received execution stays from the courts: James Ryder, whose execution was stayed April 2, 2024, and Wade Lay, whose execution was stayed May 24, 2024.
The Oklahoma Department of Corrections' current deathpenalty roster lists 25 individuals, including Ryder and Lay, and identifies the two stayed executions.
The death row population is not static. Executions, commutations, court decisions, new sentences and reversals continually change the numbers.
Oklahoma's recent history illustrates that reality. The state resumed executions in October 2021 after a lengthy period without carrying out a death sentence, and executions have continued into 2026.
Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez, who was executed Aug. 13, 2026, became the latest Oklahoma inmate put to death. Raymond Johnson was executed May 14, 2026 and Michael Smith was executed April 4, 2024.
With the execution of Cuesta-Rodriguez, Oklahoma's historical total reached 215 executions since 1915. The number tells one story, but the methods tell another.
Eighty-two Oklahomans died in the electric chair. One died by hanging. One hundred thirty-two have been put to death through lethal injection.
Those numbers also show how dramatically the state has changed its approach to capital punishment. The electric chair once represented the modern alternative to hanging.
Lethal injection eventually replaced the electric chair. Now, amid drug shortages and legal challenges, Oklahoma maintains lethal injection while also authorizing alternative methods.
The debate over the death penalty is ultimately much larger than the mechanics of an execution chamber. Supporters argue that certain crimes are so severe that the ultimate punishment is justified, particularly in cases involving multiple victims, torture or exceptionally brutal murders. They also argue that executions can provide a form of justice and finality for victims' families. Opponents argue that the government should never have the authority to deliberately end a prisoner's life, regardless of the crime. They point to wrongful convictions, racial disparities, lengthy appeals, questions about legal representation and the possibility of suffering during executions.
The history of Oklahoma's death penalty has provided examples for both sides of that argument. The case of Richard Glossip, for example, demonstrated how dramatically a death sentence can change after decades of litigation.
Glossip spent nearly three decades in prison and came within hours of execution on multiple occasions before his conviction was ultimately overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2025. He was released on bond in 2026 while awaiting a new trial. That case is a reminder of the central problem surrounding capital punishment: an execution cannot be undone.
For Oklahoma, the death penalty is no longer an occasional historical footnote. It is once again an active part of the state's criminal justice system.
Twenty-five people remain on death row, courts continue to review cases, execution dates continue to be scheduled and stayed, and the state continues to maintain a lethal-injection protocol built around three powerful drugs. More than a century after Oklahoma's first execution, the question is no longer simply how a condemned prisoner will die.
The continuing national debate asks whether the government should carry out executions at all, whether any method can be considered humane, and what safeguards are necessary when the punishment is irreversible. Oklahoma's 215 executions since 1915 provide a stark timeline of that changing debate, from the gallows to the electric chair, to the modern execution chamber, and now to a period in which even the supposedly modern method of lethal injection faces renewed questions about drugs, procedures, reliability and constitutionality.