Are all faiths equal under the law? Does the fundamental right to worship in this country depend on approval of the majority? These questions lie at the heart of a legal challenge by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Council on American-Islamic Relations to Oklahoma’s “Save Our State Amendment,” which bars state courts from applying — or even considering — Islamic “Sharia law” and “international law.”

Last November, the federal district court rejected this attempt to use the state constitution to condone bigotry and blocked the amendment from taking effect. Yesterday, a federal appellate court in Denver heard arguments in the state’s appeal of that decision, but the state should fare no better this time around.

Click Here to Read the Entire Post at the ACLU’s Blog of Rights

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits sex discrimination in schools.  Since its passage, women and girls seeking to participate in athletics have found a path through which to do so.  A 2006 study found that since 1972 women’s participation in sports at the collegiate level increased 450%.  The same study found that nine times more women participated in high school sports than did in 1972.

Of course, Title IX’s scope reaches further than sports alone.  In 1970, women accounted for only 17.5% of bachelor’s degrees granted in natural sciences and engineering.  By 2004, the percentage rose to 38.4%.  In the year 2000, 65.7% of high school girls took chemistry.  Today, more than half of all bachelor’s degrees completed in chemistry are earned by women.

These numbers are inspiring and indicate how important Title IX has been in the continuing fight for equality.  It would be foolish, however, to believe these numbers indicate women have reached full equality.  In 2007, 53% of students at Division I schools were women, yet female athletes in Division I schools received 32% of recruiting funds and 37% of total athletics expenditures.  At the thirty fifth anniversary of Title IX, women earned only 20% of all bachelor’s degrees in engineering and 25.1% of degrees in computer science, despite comprising nearly 60% of all undergraduate students. Though often more subtle than in the past, sex based discrimination persists. Yet, there is cause for hope.  When properly applied, Title IX has worked, and there is reason to believe Title IX will continue to work.  As our women’s team marches toward victory, we remember that history is on our side and true and lasting equality is surely in our future.

But while the abortion issue is an important topic, I am concerned that the legislature continually politicizes the topic and doesn’t get to the real issue. All sides want to reduce the number of abortions; all sides want to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies. But the politics of the “choice vs. anti-choice” issue overshadows this. It is time both sides come together, divorce the emotion, and have meaningful dialogue.

We first need to decide how to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies. I believe it is through a comprehensive sex education. I believe it is through easier access to contraceptives. But, I’m not arrogant enough to believe that I know all the answers, so I invite the other side to share their theories with me. I was outraged with the comments by some of the senators who either were misinformed about the true nature of this bill or indifferent to the realities of it. Both sides take this issue seriously, and the politics that were played in that committee meeting let me know politics will always trump reform.

Both sides need to talk together about how we can address policy-makers and demand that they hear what we have to say about the true issue in decreasing unintended pregnancies. It is possible for two sides of an issue to come together and it not result in mayhem, and that is what I am hoping to accomplish soon.

So, this is my open invitation to the other side of the abortion issue to meet me at the table – not the fanatic who will be unable to separate the abortion issue from the issue at hand, not the individual who will be unable to understand why both sides need to work together, and especially not the person who will be unable to help develop solutions. I want the person who believes that we need to take back the legislature and is interested in finding solutions to our increasing problem. I am seriously interested in meeting.

Will you pull up a seat at the table, or will I be dining alone?

CONTACT: tcox@acluok.org or (405) 524-8511

Randy Coyne

By Randy Coyne, National Board Representative

Presently, 36 states (including Oklahoma) and the federal government are in the execution business. All of these jurisdictions (save one) use lethal injection as the primary method of killing prisoners sentenced to death. Other apparently lawful execution methods include hanging, electrocution, and death by firing squad.

During the past year, Oklahoma prison officials have killed twice. On August 21, 2007, officials at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary at McAlester lethally injected Frank Duane Welch for the 1987 murder of Jo Talley Cooper, a 28-year-old Norman woman. And on June 17, just two months after the Baze Supreme Court decision, Terry Lyn Short died by poison for murdering Ken Yamamoto, an Oklahoma City University student in 1995.

Notwithstanding the biblical admonition, “thou shalt not kill,” the U.S. Constitution clearly contemplates the use of death as a punishment under certain circumstances and with certain restrictions. For example, although the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments empower the government to “deprive” a prisoner of his life, before the government exterminates an inmate, it must first provide due process. Whatever the hell that is. Oh, I remember: It’s whatever the Court says it is.

The most meaningful limitation on the death penalty, though, is the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Under current jurisprudence, simply killing a prisoner is not per se cruel and unusual. But you do have to mind your manners when going about putting a fellow human being to death. That’s because the Court has ruled that executions must not inflict “unnecessary pain.” Whatever the hell that is.

Measuring the pain suffered by those who the government kills is a slippery business. Those who might be in the best position to describe what sensations were experienced before death are, well, dead. But there have been pre-mortem indications of excruciating suffering endured by those whose executions may have been preceded by torture. Consider, for example, the 1999 electrocution of prisoner Allen Lee Davis, the first in Florida’s new electric chair. When 2,300 volts began coursing through his body, blood poured from Davis’ nose, onto the collar of his white shirt, and oozed onto his chest, leaving a stain the size of a dinner plate. In 1983, Jimmy Lee Gray died in Mississippi’s gas chamber, gasping desperately, moaning piteously and repeatedly banging his head against a steel pole. These and other equally gruesome executions, prompted officials in most states to switch to lethal injection, viewed as a more humane method of killing.

And yet, experience with lethal injection suggests that those in the execution business may also remain in the torture business. When Texas poisoned Stephen McCoy to death in 1989, his violent physical reaction to the drugs caused him to heave, gasp and choke. McCoy’s demise was so ghoulish that a male spectator fainted, crashed into another witness and knocked him over. When Oklahoma poisoned Robyn Parks to death four years later, Parks gasped and gagged violently, while the muscles in his jaw, neck and abdomen rippled spasmodically for 45 seconds. Similarly, in 1997, witnesses to Oklahoma’s execution of Scott Carpenter reported that within two minutes of the lethal poison entering his bloodstream, Carpenter “began to make noises, his stomach and chest began pulsing, and his jaw clenched.” Before death arrived, Carpenter’s body convulsed violently at least 18 times.

On April 16, 2008, the Supreme Court ended a moratorium on executions in Baze v. Rees, when it rejected the claims of death row inmates Ralph Baze and Thomas Bowling that Kentucky’s three-drug protocol used in lethal injections constituted cruel and unusual punishment. Baze and Bowling had argued that the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on the “gratuitous infliction of suffering” required Kentucky to avoid inflicting more pain than is necessary to cause death.

Specifically, Baze and Bowling argued – without contradiction – that if not properly anesthetized by the first drug, sodium thiopental, the prisoner would suffer tortuous pain and agonizing death when the other two drugs, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride, were injected. Moreover, even though a prisoner might be suffering excruciating pain, he would be unable to alert anyone to this suffering because the pancuronium bromide causes paralysis, and he would appear serene and comfortable to the executioners and witnesses. In other words, because Kentucky’s execution procedures created a significant and unnecessary risk of inflicting pain that could be prevented by the adoption of reasonable safeguards (eliminating the use of the paralytic agent), the Eighth Amendment was violated. The Kentucky case had broad ramifications inasmuch as most death states, including Oklahoma, use virtually the same three chemical sequence.

The Court had earlier held that the Eighth Amendment forbids “punishments of torture,” such as disemboweling, beheading, quartering, dissecting and burning alive, all of which share the deliberate infliction of pain for the sake of pain.
In Baze v. Rees, seven of the nine justices held that Kentucky’s lethal injection protocol does not violate the Eighth Amendment. According to the Court, to constitute cruel and unusual punishment, an execution method must present a “substantial” or “objectively intolerable” risk of serious harm. Only when an alternative execution procedure is feasible, readily implemented, and in fact significantly reduces a substantial risk of serious pain, will an Eighth Amendment challenge lie.
Within a month of the Court’s rejection of Baze and Bowling’s lethal injection challenge, filly Eight Belles placed second at the Kentucky Derby, broke both front ankles and was quickly lethally injected. Justice John Paul Stevens, one of the seven judges who voted to uphold Kentucky’s lethal injection procedures, said that Eight Belles probably experienced a more humane death than those who die on death row. As Justice Stevens had observed in his separate opinion in Baze v. Rees, the paralytic agent pancuronium bromide masks any outward sign of distress and creates a risk that an inmate will suffer excruciating pain before death occurs. It’s for that reason that pancuronium bromide, a drug used to kill humans, is widely prohibited for use in euthanizing animals. Also, the anesthetic used in euthanizing animals is longer-acting, which prevents the possibility of regaining consciousness before the cessation of respiration and heartbeat. The anesthetic used in human executions has a much shorter duration of effect, so, if there is any error in the drug administration, there is a higher possibility of regaining consciousness, thus the reason veterinarians do not use this anesthetic. As Stevens noted, “Kentucky may well kill [Ralph Baze and Thomas Bowling] using a drug that it would not permit to be used on [Kentucky Derby runner up Eight Belles].”

This point was not lost on Terry Lyn Short, who worked with animals before committing the murder that landed him on Oklahoma’s death row. In an interview shortly before his execution, Short was asked if he thought that lethal injection constitute cruel and unusual punishment. After acknowledging that it was a tough question, Short said, “I think the drugs they’re using is.

“I worked for a dog kennel there in Oklahoma. And I watched the veterinarian euthanize dogs, put them to sleep. And from what I understand the chemicals they use [in executions] is outlawed on animals. I think with today’s science and chemistry and stuff they probably could come up with something better.”

The Supreme Court decision which enabled Oklahoma to kill Short acknowledges that Kentucky’s three-drug protocol isn’t perfect, and encourages states to experiment to “come up with something better.” Whatever the hell that is.

On June 17, Oklahoma officials strapped Terry Lyn Short to a gurney at Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, and poisoned him to death using chemicals that a veterinarian wouldn’t use to destroy a dog.

The second session of the 51st Oklahoma Legislature ended on May 23. Like many sessions before, many appropriation bills were passed and little policy was made. The American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma had great hopes for this legislative session; it was our mission to be proactive and support bills that preserved civil liberties. Senator Harry Coates, R- Seminole, introduced a bill that would have repealed the Oklahoma Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act or more commonly known as 1804. Representative Mike Shelton introduced HB 2865, a bill that would notify individuals when their right to vote has been restored. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, these two bills never made it out of committee.

We were informed before the session even began that Representative Randy Terrill, author of 1804, planned to introduce “The Son of 1804.” This extension of 1804 would have denied birthright citizenship to children born to undocumented individuals, seized property of anyone who violated 1804, and made English the official language. Fortunately, Terrill did not get very far in his mission. The only portion of his bill to gain momentum was English Only.

SB 163 proposed to make English the official language of Oklahoma. It would prohibit any state agency from printing any material in a different language or providing translator for those with difficulties speaking English. A heated debate ensued during the hearings, and Rep. Guy Leibmann, R-Oklahoma City, chairman of the House Government and Transportation Committee, refused to hear public comments on the bill. Cherokee National Principal Chief Chad Smith exercised his right to speak but was gaveled to be quiet. Many opponents of SB 163 were shocked at the blatant disrespect shown toward Chief Smith and the brazen disregard for the common practice to allow the public comment on bills. SB 163 was overwhelmingly approved in the House and set to go to vote of the people at the November election. However, the Senate refused to approve the House amendments and the sent the bill to committee where it later died pursuant to the rules.

After the United States Supreme Court held that Indiana could require identification in order to vote, Senator John Ford, R-Bartlesville, introduced a bill that would require the same. SB 1150 would have required voters to provide some type of identification to vote. Even though the Supreme Court had upheld such a requirement days earlier, we strongly opposed such a measure. We argued that an ID requirement would have disenfranchised many eligible voters. Oklahoma had no evidence that organized voter fraud existed to even need such requirement. When the state requires a person to show proof of identity, it essentially is requiring a person to pay to vote. We reached out to our members urging them to contact their elected representatives. The partisan bill was defeated in the Senate.

Our biggest defeat came in the form of SB 1878, authored by Senator Todd Lamb, R-Edmond. SB 1878, the Freedom of Conscience Act, initially permitted health care employees to refuse to provide certain forms of health care without ensuring that patients could access the same health care services elsewhere. This bill later became a dumping ground for all the abortion bills introduced during the session that were unable to make it out of committee. The employee opt-out provision remained, but also required a sign to be placed in all abortion facilities stating that no person can force you to have an abortion. It also required that only a doctor prescribe an unnecessarily higher dose of a portion of mifepristone (RU-486), and made mandatory an ultrasound and description of the fetus one hour before the termination.

The ACLU of Oklahoma strongly opposed this bill and urged members to contact their elected officials. The affiliate along with other pro-choice advocates lobbied the governor to veto SB 1878 as well as members of the Senate to sustain the possible veto. We were confident that if Governor Brad Henry vetoed the bill, we would have enough votes in the Senate to sustain the veto. We were joyful when Henry vetoed this bill in the evening; however, our excitement was short-lived. By the time session had begun the very next morning, both houses had overridden Henry’s veto. We were outraged with the complete disregard of additional trauma this bill caused to those who decide to exercise their constitutional right.

While we are always of the mind-set that it could have been worse, we are grateful for the anti-civil liberty bills that failed. We are concerned with the continued erosion of a women’s right to choose in Oklahoma. In the last two legislative sessions, Oklahoma legislators have passed an omnibus anti-choice bill. We hope this growing trend does not continue, but we will stay vigilant to preserve the right to choose. We will continue to work diligently to support pro civil liberty bills instead of always having to oppose those bills that erode civil liberties.