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As you might have seen, the Legal professional Common of Oklahoma filed a motion asking that the Oklahoma Courtroom of Felony Appeals decelerate the tempo of executions in that state. Legal professional Common Gentner Drummond argued that killing somebody on the schedule set by the courtroom—each 60 days—imposed a psychological {and professional} burden on an overtaxed jail workers that was “too onerous and never sustainable.” He requested that executions happen each 90 days as an alternative.
Decide Gary Lumpkin wasn’t having it. At a hearing on the movement, he stated he wasn’t impressed with the “sympathy stuff” and pointed to the slippery slope that had shaped in his head. “Who’s to say subsequent month you gained’t are available and say I want 120 days? These things must cease, and folks must suck it up, notice they’ve a tough job to do, and get it performed in a well timed, proficient, skilled manner.” A recording of Lumpkin’s remarks is offered here.
It could possibly be that Decide Lumpkin is solely morally obtuse, and that he’s both detached or oblivious to the toll inflicted on executioners, as a number of commentators have recommended. If that’s true, then there’s actually nothing extra to be stated. Generally individuals say silly issues, and highly effective individuals appear to place their foot in it much more than the remainder of us. At a sure level, nevertheless, that truth is now not stunning and its reaffirmation is now not newsworthy.
However I believe one thing much more fascinating is occurring. I believe the decide’s hostility to Drummond is much less a response to his movement than an try to guard the integrity of his tribe. I believe Decide Lumpkin suspects the legal professional common is a heretic and is punishing the legal professional common for his deviance. The entire imbroglio is an instance of what social psychologists describe because the “black sheep impact.”
The logic of the black sheep impact is simple. Persons are tribal; they kind and be part of teams. A few of these teams develop into important to their identification, and folks derive very important psychological consolation from figuring out that their group exists, that it’s safe, and that they and their fellow group members are meaningfully completely different from outsiders. As a result of these teams can serve such an indispensable psychological function, many individuals are apt to defend them with specific ferocity. This leads them to police the metaphorical bounds of the group as if their life relied on it (suppose “tradition wars”), but additionally to be hyper-vigilant in regards to the menace that imposters are masquerading as members and thus weakening the group from inside. Consider the assaults on RINOs—Republicans in Identify Solely—who’re shamed and purged from the group for not being ideologically pure. On the left, cancel tradition works a lot the identical manner and serves the identical exclusionary objective.
You will discover a abstract of the literature on the black sheep impact here.
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To see how the black sheep impact may be taking part in out within the tiff between Decide Lumpkin and Legal professional Common Drummond, we’d like a bit of context. To start with, Oklahoma is a staunchly conservative state that retains and nonetheless actively makes use of capital punishment. Because the restoration of the loss of life penalty in 1976, solely Texas has executed extra individuals, and no state has executed more people per capita, than Oklahoma. In 2016, a state-wide referendum that amended the state structure to ensure the state’s energy “to impose capital punishment and set strategies of execution” handed 66% to 34%. Amongst different duties, the legal professional common represents the State in courtroom and defends its loss of life sentences from post-conviction assaults. With regards to capital punishment, the legal professional common is maybe essentially the most seen face of ingroup membership.
In Oklahoma, execution dates are set by the Courtroom of Felony Appeals, the place Lumpkin sits. In July 2022, the courtroom scheduled execution dates for 25 individuals, with an execution scheduled for practically each month from August 2022 to December 2024, an unprecedented schedule, particularly given Oklahoma’s well-documented historical past of botched executions. Drummond took workplace January 9, 2023. Shortly afterwards, he asked the courtroom to delay the tempo of executions, spacing them each 60 days as an alternative of each 4 weeks. The courtroom agreed.
Then, in April 2023, Drummond filed a motion within the Courtroom of Felony Appeals to vacate the conviction of Richard Glossip, whose case has attracted nationwide consideration based mostly on the cumulative proof of official misconduct. On the request of Oklahoma legislators, a personal regulation agency performed an exhaustive reexaminationof the case and concluded there have been “grave doubt[s] [about] the integrity of Glossip’s homicide conviction and loss of life sentence.” Based mostly on this overview, Drummond stated he had reached “the tough conclusion” that Glossip deserved a brand new trial. Noting a prosecutor’s obligation to hunt justice, Drummond said that the numerous issues with the case “set up that Glossip’s trial was unfair and unreliable. Consequently, the State is just not comfy advocating that the results of the trial would have been the identical however for these errors.” Notably, in taking this place, Drummond reversed the place taken by prior attorneys common.
The Courtroom of Felony Appeals unanimously denied Drummond’s movement.
Drummond then took the unprecedented step of supporting Glossip’s petition earlier than the Oklahoma Board of Pardons and Paroles. Once more, you will need to notice precisely what Drummond said at that continuing:
I’d affirm that I consider Mr. Glossip is, in truth, responsible of at the very least accent after the actual fact. Extra possible than not, he’s responsible of homicide. However I don’t consider that the proof presents he’s responsible past an inexpensive doubt, and that’s my concern. I consider that once we view the cumulative nature of the information, I’ve reached the tough choice that the state can not proceed in confidence with the conviction that might outcome within the loss of life penalty.
Throughout the listening to, a district legal professional who was current despatched crude and derogatory texts about Drummond to colleagues that attacked Drummond’s willingness to talk on behalf of a loss of life row inmate. The Board denied parole by an evenly break up vote, 2-2, with one member of the Board recusing.
Lastly, Drummond filed a brief supporting Glossip in the US Supreme Courtroom. The opening line of Drummond’s papers once more reveals his objective. (I’m omitting the case citations):
This Courtroom has lengthy held that the prosecutor’s function transcends that of an adversary: he’s the consultant not of an bizarre get together to an argument, however of a sovereignty … whose curiosity … in a legal prosecution is just not that it shall win a case, however that justice shall be performed.
On January 22, 2024, the Supreme Courtroom agreed to hear Glossip’s enchantment, at the very least an implicit rebuke of the Courtroom of Felony Appeals.
Eight days later, Drummond filed the present movement searching for to carry executions each 90 days as an alternative of 60.
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This historical past locations Decide Lumpkin’s hostility to Drummond’s movement in a distinct gentle. Many media retailers have famous that Decide Lumpkin stated he wasn’t impressed with the “sympathy stuff” and that the legal professional common and the Division of Corrections must “suck it up.” However to my data, none has observed the passage that appears to matter most. After recounting events greater than 20 years in the past when the State of Oklahoma executed individuals much more quickly than each 60 days, Decide Lumpkin took a direct jab at Drummond:
That Division of Corrections, that AG’s workplace, these individuals did their responsibility. And I’m sorry however I come from the Marine Corps and when we now have powerful duties, we simply say ‘man up.’ … And if these professionals, these individuals, these leaders from 2001 to 2003 might perform their duties, in such knowledgeable manner and not using a hitch, then why can not the management that’s in place right this moment carry out their duties?
The emphasis is in Decide Lumpkin’s unique tone.
The implication appears unmistakable. A actual legal professional common, an legal professional common who was a trustworthy member of the tribe, would by no means carry such a frivolous movement. That this AG ought to muddle the courtroom’s docket with this whining simply goes to point out he actually isn’t one among us. Decide Lumpkin’s very public rebuke of Drummond was an try and sign to the trustworthy that Oklahoma has a heretic in excessive locations.
And that’s the nice tragedy of the entire affair. There may be nothing in Drummond’s document that implies any hesitation in regards to the loss of life penalty, besides when it interferes together with his superior authorized obligation to hunt justice and his superior ethical obligation to guard jail workers from useless trauma. However Drummond, like his predecessors, clearly has no compunctions in regards to the loss of life penalty. Quite the opposite, all through Drummond’s tenure, Oklahoma has continued to have one of the energetic execution chambers within the nation. In line with the Loss of life Penalty Info Middle, Oklahoma is one of only five states to have carried out an execution in 2023, and one of only four that has carried out an execution in 2024.
It could possibly be that Decide Lumpkin is a cretin. Nevertheless it is also that he’s one thing far worse: an ideologue who’s making an attempt to purge Legal professional Common Drummond for the sin of being extra dedicated to the Structure and to primary notions of decency than to killing individuals. As between a cretin and an ideologue, the latter is way extra threatening to the mental material of the regulation and the ethical material of the nation.
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