Oklahoma executed a man Thursday for a 1997 murder, despite a recommendation by the state’s Board of Pardons and Pardons that his life be spared. James Coddington, 50, received a lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester and was pronounced dead at 10:16 a.m. Coddington was the fifth Oklahoma inmate to be put to death since the state resumed executions last year. “To all my family and friends, the lawyers, everyone who was around me and loved me, thank you,” Coddington said while strapped to a garage inside the death chamber. “Governor Stitt, I do not blame you and I forgive you.” After speaking his final words, Coddington raised his head and flashed his thumb at his attorney, Emma Rawls, who wept quietly in the witness box. After the first drug, midazolam, was administered, Coddington’s breathing became labored and his chest was cut several times. A doctor on the execution team pronounced him unconscious at 10:08 am. and Coddington could be heard snoring in the hall. Coddington was convicted and sentenced to death for beating 73-year-old Albert Hale to death with a hammer. Prosecutors say Coddington, then 24, became enraged when Hale refused to give him money to buy cocaine. During a clemency hearing this month before the state’s five-member Parole and Parole Board, an emotional Coddington apologized to Hale’s family and said he was a different person today. But Mitch Hale, Albert Hale’s son who witnessed the execution, said he did not believe Coddington was truly remorseful, noting that he never mentioned his father or the Hale family in his final words. “He proved today that he wasn’t genuine. He never apologized,” Hale said. “She didn’t raise my dad.” Hale added: “I forgive him, but that doesn’t absolve him of the consequences of his actions.” Rolls, Coddington’s lawyer, said during the leniency hearing that Coddington suffered from years of alcohol and drug abuse that began as an infant when his father put beer and whiskey in his bottles. Coddington was twice sentenced to death for Hale’s murder, the second time in 2008 after his original sentence was overturned on appeal. After killing Hale, Coddington committed at least six armed robberies at gas stations and convenience stores throughout Oklahoma City. “When the full circumstances of the murder, the related robberies and the extensive history of violence on Mr. Coddington’s part are considered, one thing is clear: death is the only just punishment for him,” prosecutors in the attorney general’s office wrote. state prosecutor. Board of Pardons and Paroles. The state had halted the executions in September 2015 when prison officials realized they had been given the wrong lethal drug. It was later revealed that the same wrong drug had been used to execute an inmate, and executions in the state were put on hold.
