Judges, Heretics, and Capital Punishment

As you’ll have seen, the Lawyer Normal of Oklahoma filed a movement asking that the Oklahoma Court docket of Prison Appeals decelerate the tempo of executions in that state. Lawyer Normal Gentner Drummond argued that killing somebody on the schedule set by the court docket—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.

Choose Gary Lumpkin wasn’t having it. At a listening to on the movement, he stated he wasn’t impressed with the “sympathy stuff” and pointed to the slippery slope that had fashioned in his head. “Who’s to say subsequent month you gained’t are available and say I want 120 days? These items must cease, and other people have to suck it up, understand they’ve a tough job to do, and get it achieved in a well timed, proficient, skilled approach.” A recording of Lumpkin’s remarks is offered right here.

It could possibly be that Choose 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 prompt. If that’s true, then there’s actually nothing extra to be stated. Generally folks say silly issues, and highly effective folks appear to place their foot in it much more than the remainder of us. At a sure level, nonetheless, that truth is not stunning and its reaffirmation is not newsworthy.

However I believe one thing way more fascinating is happening. 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 Choose Lumpkin suspects the lawyer normal is a heretic and is punishing the lawyer normal 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. Individuals are tribal; they kind and be a part of teams. A few of these teams grow to be important to their identification, and other people 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 position, many individuals are apt to defend them with explicit 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 risk that imposters are masquerading as members and thus weakening the group from inside. Consider the assaults on RINOs—Republicans in Title Solely—who’re shamed and purged from the group for not being ideologically pure. On the left, cancel tradition works a lot the identical approach and serves the identical exclusionary objective.

Yow will discover a abstract of the literature on the black sheep impact right here.

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To see how the black sheep impact is likely to be taking part in out within the tiff between Choose Lumpkin and Lawyer Normal Drummond, we want slightly context. To start with, Oklahoma is a staunchly conservative state that retains and nonetheless actively makes use of capital punishment. For the reason that restoration of the dying penalty in 1976, solely Texas has executed extra folks, and no state has executed extra folks 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 lawyer normal represents the State in court docket and defends its dying sentences from post-conviction assaults. In relation to capital punishment, the lawyer normal is maybe probably the most seen face of ingroup membership.

In Oklahoma, execution dates are set by the Court docket of Prison Appeals, the place Lumpkin sits. In July 2022, the court docket scheduled execution dates for 25 folks, 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 requested the court docket to delay the tempo of executions, spacing them each 60 days as an alternative of each 4 weeks. The court docket agreed.

Then, in April 2023, Drummond filed a movement within the Court docket of Prison Appeals to vacate the conviction of Richard Glossip, whose case has attracted nationwide consideration primarily based on the cumulative proof of official misconduct. On the request of Oklahoma legislators, a non-public legislation agency performed an exhaustive reexaminationof the case and concluded there have been “grave doubt[s] [about] the integrity of Glossip’s homicide conviction and dying sentence.” Based mostly on this evaluation, Drummond stated he had reached “the tough conclusion” that Glossip deserved a brand new trial. Noting a prosecutor’s obligation to hunt justice, Drummond stated that the various issues with the case “set up that Glossip’s trial was unfair and unreliable. Consequently, the State just isn’t 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 normal.

The Court docket of Prison 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 be aware precisely what Drummond stated at that continuing:

I might verify that I imagine Mr. Glossip is, in actual fact, responsible of not less than accent after the very fact. Extra seemingly than not, he’s responsible of homicide. However I don’t imagine that the proof presents he’s responsible past an affordable doubt, and that’s my concern. I imagine that once we view the cumulative nature of the info, I’ve reached the tough choice that the state can’t proceed in confidence with the conviction that may outcome within the dying penalty.

Throughout the listening to, a district lawyer who was current despatched crude and derogatory texts about Drummond to colleagues that attacked Drummond’s willingness to talk on behalf of a dying 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 quick supporting Glossip in the US Supreme Court docket. The opening line of Drummond’s papers once more reveals his objective. (I’m omitting the case citations):

This Court docket has lengthy held that the prosecutor’s position transcends that of an adversary: he’s the consultant not of an extraordinary social gathering to an issue, however of a sovereignty … whose curiosity … in a legal prosecution just isn’t that it shall win a case, however that justice shall be achieved.

On January 22, 2024, the Supreme Court docket agreed to listen to Glossip’s enchantment, not less than an implicit rebuke of the Court docket of Prison Appeals.

Eight days later, Drummond filed the present movement looking for to carry executions each 90 days as an alternative of 60.

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This historical past locations Choose Lumpkin’s hostility to Drummond’s movement in a special mild. Many media retailers have famous that Choose Lumpkin stated he wasn’t impressed with the “sympathy stuff” and that the lawyer normal and the Division of Corrections should “suck it up.” However to my information, none has seen the passage that appears to matter most. After recounting events greater than 20 years in the past when the State of Oklahoma executed folks way more quickly than each 60 days, Choose Lumpkin took a direct jab at Drummond:

That Division of Corrections, that AG’s workplace, these folks did their responsibility. And I’m sorry however I come from the Marine Corps and when now we have powerful duties, we simply say ‘man up.’ … And if these professionals, these folks, these leaders from 2001 to 2003 might perform their duties, in such knowledgeable approach with no hitch, then why can’t the management that’s in place right this moment carry out their duties?

The emphasis is in Choose Lumpkin’s authentic tone.

The implication appears unmistakable. An actual lawyer normal, an lawyer normal who was a trustworthy member of the tribe, would by no means carry such a frivolous movement. That this AG ought to litter the court docket’s docket with this whining simply goes to point out he actually isn’t certainly one of us. Choose 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’s nothing in Drummond’s report that implies any hesitation in regards to the dying penalty, besides when it interferes along 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 dying penalty. Quite the opposite, all through Drummond’s tenure, Oklahoma has continued to have one of the crucial energetic execution chambers within the nation. In keeping with the Loss of life Penalty Data Middle, Oklahoma is certainly one of solely 5 states to have carried out an execution in 2023, and certainly one of solely 4 that has carried out an execution in 2024.

It could possibly be that Choose Lumpkin is a cretin. Nevertheless it is also that he’s one thing far worse: an ideologue who’s attempting to purge Lawyer Normal Drummond for the sin of being extra dedicated to the Structure and to primary notions of decency than to killing folks. As between a cretin and an ideologue, the latter is way extra threatening to the mental cloth of the legislation and the ethical cloth of the nation.