|
Oklahoma
State Senate
Communications Division
State Capitol
Oklahoma City, OK 73105
For Immediate Release: April 23, 2014
Sen. Ralph Shortey
Shortey urges House to take up articles
of impeachment filed by Rep. Christian against Supreme Court Justices
Sen. Ralph
Shortey is urging the Oklahoma House of Representatives to take
up articles of impeachment filed by Rep. Mike Christian against
the five Justices of the Oklahoma Supreme Court who voted this week
to stay the executions of two death row inmates.
Shortey said the justices have abdicated their role as impartial
interpreters of the law, allowing the Court to be successfully manipulated
by death penalty activists.
“This decision defies the law, established precedent, and
the will of a broad majority of Oklahomans to see justice handed
down to those who prey upon the weak and innocent,” said Shortey,
R-Oklahoma City. “Activists have manipulated the Court into
implementing their vision of social justice at the expense of common-sense
justice and long-standing law. In doing so, they have denied closure
to the families who lost a teenage girl and an 11 month-old baby
in brutal murders.”
In 1999, Clayton Lockett bound 19 year-old Stephanie Neiman of Perry
with duct tape and forced her to watch as his accomplice dug her
grave. He then ordered his accomplice to bury her alive after the
two gun shots he fired into her body did not kill her. Charles Walker
in 1997 raped and murdered his girlfriend’s 11 month-old baby,
Adrianna Waller.
Legal counsel for the two inmates has challenged laws allowing the
state to withhold the source of its execution drugs, in order to
protect the inmates from the prospect of cruel and unusual punishment.
“Simply put, they have chosen to place the Court where it
has never been before because they find the arguments of death penalty
activists more compelling than the idea of justice shared by most
Oklahomans,” Shortey said. “This is the most clear-cut
instance of judicial activism you could possibly imagine.”
“This is a case of our state’s judges inserting their
personal biases and political opinions into the equation,”
said Rep. Christian, R-Oklahoma City. “According to Oklahoma
State Statute, Title 51, Chapter 2, Section 51, it states: ‘The
governor and other elective state officers, including justices of
the Supreme Court, shall be liable and subject to impeachment for
willful neglect of duty, corruption in office, habitual drunkenness,
incompetency or any offense involving moral turpitude committed
while in office.’ This situation is a clear violation of that
statute, as willful neglect of duty and incompetency has occurred.”
Christian said it is his duty as a member of the House of Representatives
to act on behalf of the state’s citizens if matters like this
arise.
“As a member of the House, I’m entrusted with being
a voice for the people of this state,” Christian said. “Right
now, we face a situation where our state’s judicial branch
has knowingly violated its trust with the people and they must be
held accountable for their dereliction of duty. And if this measure
passes, these five judges will have their day in court to answer
for their faulty decisions. It’s unfortunate we’re at
this point, but now that we are here we must enforce our state’s
system of checks and balances to get our judicial branch under control
to reverse these terrible decisions.”
For more information, contact:
Sen. Shortey: (405) 521-5557
|
