Inside the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, Phillip Hancock has eaten his final meal. Fried chicken from KFC, no sides. It’s the last day of November. He’s due to be executed at 10 a.m. 

Outside the prison known as Big Mac, 11 anti-death penalty protesters in puffy coats huddle in a circle to sing a hymn. Intermittent drizzle has snuffed out the early morning sun. A pair of cars pulls up near the penitentiary, which looks like a cross between a warehouse and a castle. The latecomers to the vigil are unlikely allies: two Republicans who favor tough law and order policies. 

“This is a strange scenario,” says J.J. Humphrey, a member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives. “You’ve got two people who have been advocating for the death penalty advocating for clemency here.” 

His friend Justin Jackson, wearing a cowboy hat and nibbling on a toothpick, keeps checking his phone. The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board recommended clemency for Mr. Hancock. But there’s no word, yet, on whether Gov. Kevin Stitt will stay the execution. Last night, Mr. Jackson went to Oklahoma City to meet in person with the Republican governor. The businessman tried to persuade Governor Stitt, who’s a friend, that the man on death row shot two men in self-defense. 

“We believe in God and guns,” says Mr. Jackson. “It sends a bad message to our state and to the rest of the nation that you’re going to be vulnerable if you stand your ground and protect your life.”

Oklahoma hasn’t executed as many people as Texas has. But it has led the United States for the highest per capita rate of executions since 1976. There’s strong residual support for capital punishment here in the buckle of the Bible Belt. In 2016, the Sooner State held a referendum on whether to amend its constitution “to guarantee the state’s power to impose capital punishment and set methods of execution.” It passed, 66% to 34%.

But trust in the system has been shaken. Mr. Jackson is single-handedly responsible for starting a crusade inside the political establishment. Thirty-four Oklahoma lawmakers – including 28 Republicans – wrote to the governor in 2021 asking him to reexamine the case of a man in prison named Richard Glossip. Last year, three GOP representatives and a former member of the Parole and Pardon Board held a press conference to advocate for a state moratorium on the death penalty. That coincided with another jolt to the system. 

Last May, Oklahoma’s attorney general took the unprecedented step of filing a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of Mr. Glossip, asking the justices to halt his execution. On Jan. 22, in a rare move, the justices took Mr. Glossip’s case and will consider whether to overturn his conviction. The case will be heard this fall. 

Also making headlines: Glynn Simmons became a free man in December after spending 48 years in prison. It was the longest wrongful imprisonment in U.S. history. He’s the 11th Oklahoman to be exonerated since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Now some Oklahomans are asking themselves, can we trust that innocent people aren’t being put to death? On the flip side, has the state been letting guilty people go free?

In Oklahoma – which Pew Research Center ranks among the top 10 most religious states, with about 80% of residents identifying as Christian – these issues have also dovetailed with three categories of shifting thought among Christians. The first is skepticism among some Christian conservatives that government institutions can function smoothly. The second is an argument, especially among Catholics and mainline Protestants, that being pro-life extends beyond the abortion issue to include opposition to the death penalty. And the third is that the death penalty shortcuts or circumvents the possibility of redemption. The concept of converting criminals was popular among Evangelicals earlier in the 20th century. It’s undergone a resurgence. 

Riley Robinson/Staff

Oklahoma Rep. J.J. Humphrey (foreground) and Justin Jackson stand outside the Oklahoma State Penitentiary Nov. 30, 2023. The Republicans are pushing to pause executions until the state can correct what they see as systemic problems with capital punishment.

“The seeds of today’s anti-death penalty critique are there in the 1940s and ’50s,” says Aaron Griffith, author of “God’s Law and Order: The Politics of Punishment in Evangelical America.” “The difference today is there’s just so much more media exposure and coverage of the inequalities and problems in American criminal justice, in part because the system itself has gotten so big and expansive because of those kinds of law and order arguments from years past.”

Qualms grow about capital punishment

An increasingly secular America is also weighing the application of capital punishment. A 2023 Gallup poll revealed that, for the first time, fewer than half of Americans – 47% – believe that the death penalty is administered fairly. 

Twenty-nine states have either outright abolished the death penalty or halted it through executive action. This year, California, which has the largest death row in the country, has begun dismantling it. Others are grappling with debates over its merits and implementation. 

Oklahoma Republicans aren’t the first conservative lawmakers to have qualms about capital punishment. In 2015, the Republican-dominated Nebraska state Legislature abolished the death penalty. The following year, Nebraska voters reinstated it. In North Carolina, a coalition of religious leaders and criminal justice advocates is lobbying the governor, a Democrat, to commute every single death row sentence. 

Their doubts come at a time when just five states, including Oklahoma, carried out executions last year. Twenty-four people were executed in 2023 – up from a low of 11 in 2021, according to the Death Penalty Information Center’s annual report. It is still well below the high of 98 in 1999.

In Oklahoma, it’s the Richard Glossip case that’s spurring this conversation about the death penalty. 

“He’s had three last meals, and he’s been on the brink of execution three times,” says Mr. Jackson. “He’s had nine execution dates.”

Mr. Jackson’s concerns stem from a 2017 documentary series, “Killing Richard Glossip.” The hotel worker was sentenced to death for allegedly soliciting the murder of his boss, Barry Van Treese. The actual murderer, Justin Sneed, pleaded guilty. But he avoided the death penalty by cutting a deal with prosecutors to testify against Mr. Glossip. 

The case has been publicized by celebrities such as Kim Kardashian. Mr. Glossip’s defenders say that Mr. Sneed, the state’s star witness, lied under oath. An independent counsel found that prosecutors also destroyed security camera footage, failed to disclose pertinent information, and withheld a box of evidence from Mr. Glossip’s attorneys. 

“I cannot stand behind the murder conviction and death sentence of Richard Glossip,” said Attorney General Gentner Drummond. “This is not to say I believe he is innocent. However, it is critical that Oklahomans have absolute faith that the death penalty is administered fairly and with certainty.”

Mr. Van Treese’s family believes Mr. Glossip deserves the death sentence.

“I spent over half my life waiting for justice to be served for those responsible,” Derek Van Treese, the son of the victim, told the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board last year. “This case has been pushed from being a legal matter to being a political issue.”

Riley Robinson/Staff

Lawn signs and crosses outside the Lazarus Community church building oppose the death penalty. Oklahoma has executed more people per capita than any other state. Each cross represents a person sentenced to death in Oklahoma. A cross is painted red after the person is executed. Green paint represents someone who was granted clemency.

Mr. Jackson has been instrumental in bringing the case into the statehouse.

“I feel like the Lord led me to get involved,” says Mr. Jackson, who was raised Southern Baptist. “I am for capital punishment – but we have got to make sure we get it right. If we’re going to take on that responsibility ... it has to be without a doubt.”

The activist recalls going deer hunting with Mr. Stitt during his first term as governor:

“We’re sitting in a tarp blind, and I said, ‘Governor, I will send you a little clip, a segment on Richard Glossip ... because it’s going to come up eventually.’” 

To date, Mr. Stitt remains unpersuaded by the arguments for a retrial. But Mr. Jackson found other receptive ears inside the Oklahoma House of Representatives. 

Sitting in his statehouse office, Rep. Kevin McDugle recalls Mr. Jackson imploring him to watch the documentary. The lawmaker was skeptical of a Hollywood production. But after watching the four episodes, he thought to himself, “If 10% of this is true, we might really have somebody [innocent] on death row.” 

Representative McDugle’s 2014 memoir, “Inside the Mind of a Marine Drill Instructor,” describes how he once delighted in hurricaning through squad bay, overturning recruits’ footlockers and beds while screaming, as he puts it, “choice language.” No one would mistake Mr. McDugle for a bleeding heart liberal. Yet he’s now joined forces with state Representative Humphrey to campaign for a moratorium on the death penalty. 

“If the legal system is pure and if we get it right every time, then there should be a death penalty,” says Mr. McDugle, sitting in front of a framed portrait of Ronald Reagan. “Of the people that we’ve had on death row, 10% have been exonerated. They went through the jury trials. They were convicted. ... And then DNA evidence proves that they were innocent. Now, that’s 10% of the people that we know of. How many people did we kill prior to that that were actually innocent?”

The politician, who’s been in office since 2016, believes those glaring flaws undermine faith in the criminal justice system as a whole. He worries about an uneven application of justice in which some convicted murderers are sentenced to death while others get life sentences. Plus, he’s no longer convinced that the death penalty is a deterrent to crime. 

“A lot of it comes from experience. A lot of it comes from study. A lot of it comes from finding out truth,” he says.

Mr. McDugle and Mr. Humphrey have received support from various secular and religious groups, including the Oklahoma Coalition To Abolish the Death Penalty. 

Riley Robinson/Staff

“Of the people that we’ve had on death row, 10% have been exonerated. ... Now, that’s 10% of the people that we know of. How many people did we kill prior to that that were actually innocent?” – Kevin McDugle, Oklahoma state representative who wants a pause to reform executions

According to the Rev. Don Heath, the group’s chair, most people in Oklahoma believe that the end point of justice is retribution for violence. He traces it back to the Calvinistic idea that humans are wretched and deserve to suffer eternal torment unless they accept Christ.

“I think that’s an embedded theology in a lot of people, whether or not they go to church,” says Mr. Heath, a leader at Edmond Trinity Christian Church. 

The progressive-leaning minister hopes Oklahoma will move beyond what he calls the “primitive levels of justice” toward restorative justice. As part of his ministry, Mr. Heath regularly visits people in prison, including those on death row.

“You have to see them as, this is a beloved child of God, too, not ‘the other,’” he says. “We have built this prison system where we can separate them from society. And as long as people still have that idea that that’s where criminals belong ... you haven’t changed the way people think about them.”

Mr. McDugle is still a proponent of holding criminals accountable. But a personal experience helped shape how he views those in the criminal justice system.

After three tours of combat, the former Marine sergeant suffered post-traumatic stress disorder for decades. He tried prescription pills. He tried psychological counseling. He’s been divorced three times. 

Mr. McDugle says the message he was hearing from doctors was, “You’ll never be fixed. You’ll never be well.” In desperation, Mr. McDugle enrolled in a weeklong veteran recovery program by the faith-based Mighty Oaks Foundation in Texas. 

“I stood in front of men that I trusted because they’d been on the same battlefields I’d been on, and all they did was point at the Word of God and said, ‘You’re not broken,’” says Mr. McDugle, his voice cracking. He pauses for 25 seconds, head bowed, struggling not to tear up. “Those five days changed my life. Because the PTSD is gone.”

Riley Robinson/Staff

“You have to see them as, this is a beloved child of God, too, not ‘the other.’” – Don Heath, chair of the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and leader at Edmond Trinity Christian Church

His experience convinced him that people can change. 

“Being a Baptist, I can say this: We are some of the most judgmental people around,” says Mr. McDugle, whose lustrous hair, curling at the nape of his neck, is a sharp contrast to when, as a Marine, he had it sheared within millimeters of the follicles. He says he’s now more empathetic and compassionate. He muses that perhaps this is how Christ wants us to look at other people.

“I know people in jail right now who’ve murdered people when they were under a drug-induced state at 17 years old, and they’re now 30-some years old and they’re extremely sorry,” he says. “If you let them out today, they’re not going to hurt another soul. ... But we have no mechanism for them to be able to rehabilitate.”

A demand for justice

Three years ago, Craig Blankenship went through an experience that shook his faith in the criminal justice system. It also led him to believe that the death penalty is entirely warranted in instances of heinous crimes. 

Sitting in a hotel lobby in downtown Oklahoma City, the oil entrepreneur recounts the story of his former daughter-in-law, Andrea Blankenship. 

On Feb. 12, 2021, he was driving home from work in the dark when his wife called. 

“She said, ‘Craig, you’re not going to believe this.’ And I said, ‘What?’ ... And she said, ‘Andrea has been murdered.’”  

As he recounts those words, he still sounds surprised.

Andrea Blankenship married Mr. Blankenship’s oldest son, Curt, on a Hawaii beach in 2004. They had two children, but the marriage foundered. Following the divorce, Mr. Blankenship paid Andrea’s rent and bills for several years. In 2021, Andrea moved to Chickasha, not far from Oklahoma City. By then, her son, John Hayden, had grown up. Her daughter, Haylee, was a freshman at Oklahoma State University. Andrea was living at her mother’s house. 

In early February 2021, an attacker broke down her door. 

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation told the family that Andrea had been repeatedly stabbed. But they didn’t share further details other than to say her death was gruesome. In fact, the murderer had committed an act of cannibalism.

“You know how Andrea’s kids found out about it? On. The. Television. ... The OSBI didn’t even have the courtesy to call and tell them,” says Mr. Blankenship.

Riley Robinson/Staff

“They think that everybody should be given a second and a third and a fifth chance. Are you willing to bet your own family members on it?” – Craig Blankenship, whose daughter-in-law was murdered

The details of the homicide were all over the news. Not just in Oklahoma, but around the world.

Even more horrifying details emerged. The killer, Lawrence Paul Anderson, had been visiting his older aunt and uncle, who lived across the road. After killing Andrea, he returned to their home. He attacked both of them and killed his uncle, Leon Pye. Delsie Pye survived by playing dead. But her injuries included the loss of an eye. Their 4-year-old granddaughter, Kaeos Yates, had been dropped off for a visit earlier that day. He killed the little girl, too.

Mr. Anderson pleaded guilty to all three murders.

“I never was against the death penalty,” says Mr. Blankenship. “My attitude was, if you know for sure that they committed an act with malice and forethought, they should die. They should pay the price. Otherwise, you know, I didn’t think a whole lot about it.”

Mr. Anderson was tried in court last March. 

“The judge asked if he had any apologies to offer,” Mr. Blankenship recalls. “And [he] stared straight ahead. ... The judge said, ‘Please answer with a verbal response.’ He said, ‘Nope.’ He didn’t even apologize to the mother for killing that 4-year-old girl.” 

As Mr. Blankenship stared at the impassive killer sitting 10 feet away from him, he wasn’t just mourning Andrea’s death. On July 4, 2021, he returned home from a round of golf. He had plans to smoke ribs on the barbecue. When Mr. Blankenship opened his garage door, he discovered that his son Curt had hanged himself. Mr. Blankenship rushed to help and checked his son’s pulse. But it was too late. 

“Something you don’t ever want to see in your life,” he says. 

It was four months after Andrea’s murder.

The victims’ relatives agreed to a plea deal that spared Mr. Anderson the death penalty. The reason? They couldn’t bear the idea of further court cases during the appeals that would inevitably follow a death row sentence. It would have entailed hearing about the horrors all over again. There would be more microphones thrust at them and cameras zooming in for close-ups. 

Mr. Blankenship is sympathetic to the decision his two grandchildren made. But not in agreement with it. 

“I said, ‘If that was my mother, I would go for 50 years to his appeals hearings.’”

The judge polled each of the victims’ relatives about the sentencing. 

“I said, ‘He deserves death,’” Mr. Blankenship recounts.

Riley Robinson/Staff

Khiet Nguyen, diocese chaplain for the prison ministry in Oklahoma, holds a prayer book outside the prison in McAlester, Nov. 30, 2023. At the vigil, people prayed for both victims and those executed.

Mr. Anderson was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. It was an earlier parole that enabled him to commit the murders in the first place. 

Prior to the murders, Mr. Anderson’s rap sheet had numerous counts on it, including drug possession and sales, domestic abuse, and attempted armed robbery.

In January 2019, he applied for parole, but was turned down later that year. By law, Mr. Anderson should have been ineligible to apply again for three years. That August, he submitted another application. During the interim period, the application form was shortened from 28 questions to eight questions. The revised questionnaire no longer asked if petitioners committed offenses during incarceration.

“He had put two people in the hospital by beating them,” says Mr. Blankenship. “Caught with shanks three times. ... Well, all of that stuff was removed from his application.”

This time, the Parole and Pardon Board granted his request, 3 votes to 1. In June 2020, Governor Stitt signed off on a commutation that reduced Mr. Anderson’s sentence to nine years. That made him eligible for release in 2021. In 2022, Delsie Pye and the victims’ relatives filed a lawsuit against Mr. Stitt. 

Mr. Anderson was released the year after Governor Stitt announced the largest single-day commutation in U.S. history. 

“He brought the prison population down by thousands,” says Mr. Blankenship. “One of the vehicles to be able to do it was just, ‘Hey, let’s give people a second chance.’ And people that are nonviolent offenders and low-level drug users and all that, I would be the first person to say, ‘Amen.’ I have no problem with that. The problem is they didn’t do their due diligence and they didn’t know who they were letting out.”  

Mr. Anderson committed his murder spree three weeks after he got out of prison. 

Riley Robinson/Staff

The Oklahoma State Penitentiary on Nov. 30, 2023.

On social media, Mr. Blankenship regularly opines about the death penalty in Oklahoma. When a group of Christian leaders announced a press conference in 2022 to call for a moratorium on the death penalty, Mr. Blankenship chronicled what his family endured following Andrea’s murder.

“They think that everybody should be given a second and a third and a fifth chance,” Mr. Blankenship says between moments of silence as his eyes suddenly well with tears and his breathing comes out as quiet gasps. “Are you willing to bet your own family members on it?”  

Mr. Blankenship points to several instances of people granted early release committing murders. Last May, a convicted rapist who had been granted early release shot and killed six people in Oklahoma. 

Mr. Blankenship is rebuilding his life. He’s been caring for his wife after a cancer diagnosis. Today, the disease is in remission, and she is relearning how to walk. 

He mentions a song called “A Long December” that constantly plays on his mental jukebox. It’s by the Counting Crows and begins, “A long December and there’s reason to believe / Maybe this year will be better than the last.” That mantra swirls around his head like a lighthouse beam.

But a consequence of his experience is that he is suspicious of death penalty abolitionists. He believes they’re too credulous of those proclaiming their innocence. “They’re saying, ‘We don’t want to execute people that aren’t guilty.’ And that’s a problem, you know,” he says. But does that mean “we should say now that nobody’s guilty?” 

A view from inside the death chamber

Before Justin Jones was appointed director of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections in 2005, he had a meeting with then-Gov. Brad Henry. 

“He asked me if I believed in the death penalty,” Mr. Jones recalls. “I said, ‘I don’t believe I do.’”

He says the governor responded that he, too, had doubts. But capital punishment is the law. And the U.S. is a country of laws. So until people changed it, could Mr. Jones carry out a death sentence?

“I said yes, I guess, because if I had said no, I probably wouldn’t have got the job,” says Mr. Jones.

He recalls the governor telling him to perform executions with dignity and as much respect as possible. And to make sure there were no mistakes.

Mr. Jones went on to oversee 28 executions before retiring in 2013. He’s one of several former public employees who have called for a moratorium of the death penalty because they’ve witnessed the inner workings of the system. 

Mr. Jones retired after a state official demanded he strap a person on death row to a gurney long before the court of appeals rendered a decision. The sentence was commuted.

Riley Robinson/Staff

A sign outside Edmond Trinity Christian Church protests the state’s death penalty, in Edmond, Oklahoma, Nov. 29, 2023, the day before Phillip Hancock’s execution.

Mr. Jones believed the command violated the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. He now runs a consulting business for cases of Eighth Amendment violations, specifically wrongful and preventable deaths in prisons, jails, and detention facilities. 

Testifying before the statehouse last year, he warned lawmakers, “I’m guaranteeing you that you’re going to have other botched executions.”

He was referring to a horrific incident in 2014 and another in 2015. 

When the state first changed its lethal injection cocktail mix, it resulted in excruciatingly painful deaths. Consequently, Mr. Glossip was spared the same fate. The U.S. Supreme Court accepted his case challenging the use of the drug midazolam. Oklahoma halted its executions until 2021. 

Last year, Mr. Jones co-wrote a letter to Attorney General Drummond to warn that Oklahoma’s rate of executions takes a mental toll on correctional staff. A lethal injection execution has more checklists than a NASA rocket launch does. The corrections officers rehearse the timing of the entire procedure as though it’s a military drill; they even know how many steps it takes from each cell unit to the death chamber. Yet he observed mishaps. 

The botched executions led to the creation of a bipartisan Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission co-chaired by Mr. Henry, the former Democratic governor, and former federal magistrate judge Andy Lester. Its 2017 report featured 46 recommendations for reforms. To date, none have been implemented. Both co-chairs favor a state moratorium. 

When Mr. McDugle convened a hearing of the state House Judiciary Criminal Committee last year, Judge Lester declared, “Whether you support capital punishment or oppose it, one thing is clear: From start to finish, the Oklahoma capital punishment system is fundamentally broken.”

In one 2023 poll, a majority of Oklahomans said they favor life in prison over the death penalty, while 77% would support a moratorium so that reforms could be made. That was, however, just one poll.

At the same hearings, Adam Luck, former chair of the Oklahoma Board of Pardons, shared his own mistrust of the current system. 

“In Oklahoma, we’ve exonerated 11 people off of death row – nationally, it’s over 190 people at this point,” says Mr. Luck in a phone call. “‘Is it possible to get it right every single time?’ So my answer to that question was ‘no.’ Because currently we are not. ... So then the next question for me was, ‘How many innocent people am I OK with being executed to continue killing guilty people?’”

Oklahoma County accounts for the majority of the state’s executions. Former district attorney Robert H. Macy was responsible for 54 death row sentences between 1980 and 2001, including Mr. Glossip’s. It remains a U.S. record. 

Today, the late Mr. Macy is often remembered for prosecutorial misconduct. One third of his death row cases were found to be flawed. As the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals put it in 2002, “Macy’s persistent misconduct ... has without doubt harmed the reputation of Oklahoma’s criminal justice system.”

The same year that “Cowboy Bob” retired, the FBI investigated one of his allies, police chemist Joyce Gilchrist. The bureau concluded that Ms. Gilchrist often falsified DNA tests, committed perjury, and altered or destroyed evidence. Ms. Gilchrist was fired in 2001 but never charged with any crime. Before her death in 2015, she denied any wrongdoing. Ms. Gilchrist testified in 23 of Mr. Macy’s cases that resulted in a death sentence. Twelve have been carried out. Five people, two of whom were on death row, have been exonerated.

Mr. Jones, former director of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, can attest that the system isn’t infallible.

Early in his career, when he was a parole officer, an incarcerated person told him that he’d been sentenced to death for a crime he wasn’t party to. He eventually received a new trial. After the jury deliberated for 45 minutes, the former prisoner walked out a free man. “He said, ‘Hey, I’m glad you believed in me,’” says Mr. Jones. Because “‘nobody else did.’”

Another turning point was when his best friend was killed in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. He felt that the perpetrator, Timothy McVeigh, got off easy when he was executed. 

Now a novelist, Mr. Jones says his latest book, “The Devil’s Smokehouse,” was inspired by an indelible memory of an execution. The young man was in his 20s. In the death chamber, he addressed the victim’s family on the other side of the glass. He told them how sorry he was and that he wasn’t the same person today. But he said he knew he deserved to die and, although he didn’t think his execution would help them, he hoped it would.

That ties in with another observation from Mr. Jones’ years of meeting the families of murder victims. “A lot of them were angry because their loved one had suffered and that person died rather peacefully,” he says. “Others felt like it had made no difference, and they were somewhat regretful because they didn’t feel any better. They don’t understand that that’s a chapter of your life, and it’s never going to go away.”

Riley Robinson/Staff

“I don’t have a theological issue with the death penalty. What I don’t like about it is that victims’ families have to wait sometimes 20-plus years to finally see justice adjudicated.” – Jennifer Harmon, a member of the Grey Robed Benedictines, who advocates for families of people who were murdered

A friend waits, and prays

Outside the penitentiary in McAlester, Alan Knight awaits news of whether his friend will be spared the death penalty. 

As police officers with bored expressions stand near a barrier on the road outside the prison, Mr. Jackson and Mr. Humphrey swap information with Mr. Knight. The execution is running behind schedule. To date, Governor Stitt has only stayed one execution: In 2021, he commuted Julius Jones’ sentence to life in prison without parole. 

Mr. Knight, who seems impervious to the cold despite wearing a gray summer-weight suit, has known Mr. Hancock since childhood. He worries that the experience has led his friend of four decades – whom he describes as loving, gentle, and a sharp intellect – to abandon his faith. Mr. Knight has found himself interrogating his own position about capital punishment. 

“​​It’s a difficult thing because I’ve always been in favor of the death penalty,” says the truck driver. “But ... it makes me think like, you know, if there’s any chance of getting something wrong, maybe we should just stop and think about it a little bit longer.”

Mr. Knight joins the other anti-death penalty protesters in a prayer circle for the victims.

“We pray for the souls of Robert L. Jett Jr. and James V. Lynch, who were violently taken from us,” a priest, Bryan Brooks, intones. 

Mr. Hancock claimed that those two men intended to kill him. The defense team argued that an argument broke out while Mr. Hancock was visiting Mr. Jett’s home. The duo tried to force him into a cage. Mr. Hancock said he got control of Mr. Jett’s gun and shot both men in self-defense. Prosecutors countered that Mr. Hancock was inconsistent in his accounts of events, and injuries to Mr. Jett’s back contradict claims of self-defense. During the 1980s, Mr. Hancock served time for killing another man, which he claimed was also in self-defense.

A woman with a crucifix hovers near the prayer group. Unlike others here, Jennifer Harmon has little sympathy for Mr. Hancock. Or Mr. Glossip. She believes that both men were correctly found guilty. 

Ms. Harmon regularly comes here during executions because she says vigils on behalf of those on death row overshadow the original crimes. The people murdered and their families receive too little attention, she says. 

Yet Ms. Harmon opposes the death penalty. In Oklahoma’s 2016 referendum, she was among the minority who voted no. Her reasoning: Death sentences result in appeals processes that drags on for years. 

“I don’t have a theological issue with the death penalty,” says Ms. Harmon, who belongs to an ecumenical order called the Grey Robed Benedictines. “What I don’t like about it is that victims’ families have to wait sometimes 20-plus years to finally see justice adjudicated.” 

Ms. Harmon also believes in the possibility of grace for those who own up to their crimes and sincerely atone for them. 

At 11:15 a.m., word comes through social media that the execution is going to proceed. 

The protesters gather in a circle again, this time to pray for Mr. Hancock. 

After the execution, rain begins to fall. So do tears. Mr. Jackson consoles Mr. Knight. Protesters hug one another. 

“We’ve had times in America where we were opposed to the death penalty,” says Representative Humphrey, sitting in his pickup truck. “And then you see something heinous that captures everybody’s attention. ... And so you see it swing back. I would encourage everybody: Let’s find a balance.”

Johanna Geron/Reuters

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk attends a European Union summit in Brussels, Feb. 1, 2024. The newly elected prime minister plans to undo much of the policy of the prior populist Law and Justice government.

When Donald Tusk formed a centrist coalition government in December to govern Poland, he finally received a chance to realize his campaign promise to “clean up” the country “with an iron broom.”

The previous right-wing government had turned inward and rolled back women’s and minority rights over the previous eight years. Now, he declared, Poland would strengthen relations with the European Union, reinstate abortion rights, and generally fix what he called the democratic backsliding of his populist predecessors.

But, like the 2020 presidential election in the United States, Poland’s parliamentary elections last year left the country still bitterly divided. The ousted Law and Justice party still has loyalists throughout the Polish judiciary and media, and retains the support of millions of Poles – more than any other party (though not a majority, and it lacked allies to form a coalition).

And the sweeping changes that Mr. Tusk wants to make – including, so far, the dissolution and reincorporation of state media and attempted dismissal of the national prosecutor – have already been branded as “undemocratic” by Law and Justice.

How does one “restore democracy” in such a polarized environment?

As democrats around the world struggle with governments flirting with authoritarianism, Poland’s way forward will be watched closely. Ultimately, say sociologists, the new government needs to restore the trust that people have in government – and in each other. It’s a tall order for a country that ranks second lowest in the European Union for public trust in government, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

“Politically the most important thing right now is to close this gap between [opposing parties], because more and more we have an existential threat within the next few years between us,” says Jakub Wygnański, sociologist and co-founder of the Shipyard Foundation. “You need virtues; you need trust – that’s the basic glue of the democratic system, especially in insecure times.”

Czarek Sokolowski/AP

Supporters of the right-wing Law and Justice party protest before the parliament building in Warsaw, Jan. 11, 2024. Law and Justice, frustrated over its recent loss of power, urged its supporters to protest moves by the new pro-European Union government to take control of state media.

The pressure to change quickly

Under parties of all stripes, Poland has seen a systematic weakening of institutional arbiters – such as the prosecutor’s office, the judiciary, and the media – over its 35-year history as a young democracy. That accelerated under Law and Justice, which effectively “colonized” those arbiters with party loyalists, says Klaus Bachmann, a historian at SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw.

Prime Minister Tusk can try to “clean up,” but the opposition still holds the president’s office, which will likely veto any changes he might make legally.

The pressure’s on, because the coalition’s supporters want results. “I don’t want things to be rushed, but I would like to see some achievements and outcomes by the end of the year,” says Jolanta Nowak, an economist who voted for Mr. Tusk’s party. “I would be satisfied with this.”

Mr. Tusk could wait and hope the next presidential election, in spring 2025, installs one of his comrades, thus neutralizing the veto. But the pressure may also tempt him to skirt rules in the same vein of his predecessors. For example, his government dissolved public media as the quickest way to resolve a leadership dispute and sweep out journalists installed by Law and Justice. Mr. Tusk’s government declared the moves by the book, but Law and Justice politicians called them a “violation of the constitution.”

“Tusk has the support of his people. Their opinion polls are good. If he wanted to do these things, he could just do them now. The danger is the long run,” says Dr. Bachmann. “This is the fundamental question.”

Specifically, he says, it’s the possibility that Mr. Tusk perpetuates a cycle of political retribution, further eroding democratic norms.

In the past, if politicians are voted out, they land back in a small-town mayoralty, go to a think tank, or take a job at a state-owned enterprise, explains Dr. Bachmann. But flout the law while you’re in office and then lose the next election, and you could face a parliamentary committee or investigation by a prosecutor.

“Now they risk prison. And then the next government also risks prison. And you have such a situation that becomes basically the end of any orderly, peaceful transition of power,” says Dr. Bachmann. “Politics is about getting power and keeping power, right? You try to hold on to power to avoid that situation – and that’s basically the end of democracy.”

Every election, a revolution?

Both the previous government and the new one have raised hackles in their exercise of the law, depending on who’s doing the judging.

According to a Warsaw Enterprise Institute report, the use of pretrial detentions doubled between 2015 and 2021 under Law and Justice rule – a situation that increasingly drew the scrutiny of human rights organizations. And Law and Justice also packed the Constitutional Court, Poland’s highest bench, to try to overcome the obstacles it posed to the government’s agenda.

For its part, the new coalition government has dissolved state media and also enforced a court verdict to imprison two former Law and Justice ministers, amid a heated political row and public demonstrations. (The ministers were eventually pardoned by the president in January.)

Legality aside, such moves feel tit for tat, so that each change of government might feel like a revolution.

Poland’s new Ministry of Justice proclaims everything will be done by the book as it works to rebuild trust in the country’s institutions, says Arkadiusz Myrcha, the deputy justice minister.

“It’s primarily about [instilling a feeling of] equality for everyone in terms of subject, individual, and state,” says Mr. Myrcha. “That we all operate and live by the same rules, that someone who commits an offense, whether an average Kowalski – ‘average Joe’ in Polish – or a politician, is equally accountable.”

But Law and Justice politicians say that the new government is behaving illegally.

“When they came into power, they immediately started to take over the media without legal basis,” says Paweł Jabłoński, a Law and Justice member of parliament. “We’ve been accused of breaching the rules of democracy, the rule of law, the separation of powers. ... We never did that. We failed to secure a majority [in October’s election] and we left. We left the government.”

Lenora Chu

Paweł Jabłoński is a member of parliament from the Law and Justice party, elected to represent the Rybnik district, an industrial part of southern Poland.

Just this week, Mr. Tusk’s coalition announced it would remove some judges installed by Law and Justice to the Constitutional Court. It’s a controversial move, though opinion polls show Mr. Tusk gaining 5 percentage points in public trust while top Law and Justice leaders dropped, according to public pollster CBOS.

Meanwhile, an ideological gap continues to widen between the new government and now-opposition Law and Justice, despite Mr. Tusk’s rhetoric about “reconciliation and reconstruction of the national community.”

If reconciliation is the goal, Mr. Tusk has a long way to go.

For Jan Bonikowski, a pensioner who supported Law and Justice in October’s elections, it’s Mr. Tusk’s coalition that has “finished democracy.” Mr. Bonikowski says he’s so disgusted by politics that he doesn’t watch television anymore.

On the other side are voters such as Ewa Mańkiewicz, a retired accountant, who is happy the coalition won in October. She longs for a time when people on opposite sides of the political spectrum were kinder to each other.

“Over the last eight years, people stopped talking to each other. Even back in the communist era, people of opposing political views would still be able to have a conversation, but that’s changed immensely.”

Piotr Żakowiecki contributed to this report.

In a small village in Jharkhand, India, 36 children were playing cricket when the skies turned gray and thunder rolled. Eight scrambled into a nearby culvert, and the rest took refuge under a tree. That tree was struck by lightning in minutes. 

Many survived that night, but three of the children and their teacher joined the 2,641 Indians killed by lightning in 2015. To this day, lightning claims roughly 3,000 lives every year in India – more than any other weather event.

Activists and scientists throughout India have been sounding the alarm over this oft-ignored hazard, but sustained progress has proved challenging. 

Though early warning systems are now in place, lightning alerts often don’t reach the most vulnerable people in time. When they do, many don’t know how to protect themselves – the majority of lightning victims die under trees, like those in Jharkhand. Another problem is that the government’s attitude toward lightning is reactive rather than proactive, says Manoranjan Mishra, a lightning researcher and professor at Fakir Mohan University in Odisha state. Instead of bolstering protection systems, funds are utilized after the fact, to compensate victims’ families. 

These shortfalls stem in part from the sporadic nature of lightning, which only makes headlines when there’s a mass casualty. But as lightning activity rises with climate change, mitigation efforts are more critical than ever. “We have to adapt to it, or we will die,” says Dr. Mishra. 

What is lost to lightning

Lightning safety activist Sanjay Srivastava was among those who rushed to the site of the 2015 Jharkhand strike. The teacher’s death hit him hard. The man was the breadwinner of his family, the local school’s only teacher, and a dedicated social worker. “I cannot forget his face,” Mr. Srivastava says.

Mr. Srivastava was a colonel in the technical arm of the Indian army, where he worked on lightning protection of strategic locations such as atomic power plants, before returning to his native Jharkhand in 2008 to work as a disaster management expert. At that time, there were no early warning or lightning safety systems in place.

“The very first day when I went, there were 37 deaths [in the area] due to lightning,” he recalls. 

Since then, he’s been on a mission to teach people how to stay safe during storms, and to jolt authorities into action. He’s the convener of the Lightning Resilient India Campaign, an initiative started in 2019 by the nonprofit Climate Resilient Observing Systems Promotion Council and the Indian Meteorological Department. Its aim: prevent the loss of lives and livelihood due to lightning. 

Courtesy of Sanjay Srivastava/Climate Resilient Observing Systems Promotion Council

Sanjay Srivastava demonstrates how to revive someone hit by a lightning bolt during a public awareness campaign Dec. 15, 2022, in Uttar Pradesh.

With the help of volunteers and nonprofits, Mr. Srivastava has conducted lightning safety demonstrations in some of the most remote pockets of the country, but he acknowledges that progress has been inconsistent.

“Everybody is doing piecemeal work,” he says.

India’s Meteorological Department only began forecasting lightning in 2019. And federal agencies still don’t classify it the same as earthquakes, cyclones, and other natural disasters, limiting funds for mitigation.

In 2018, the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, based in Pune, launched an app called Damini that uses IITM’s own sensor network to predict lightning activity and issues alerts to people in a 12-to-25-mile radius an hour or so before the onset of lightning. But the farmer in the field or the cattle herder on the hill may not have a smartphone and is often oblivious to these warnings. 

In 2022, lightning claimed 2,887 lives, 35.8% of all deaths due to the forces of nature. The vast majority of fatalities occurred in rural areas, to farmers working outside. Experts believe 2023 figures will be similar. 

For those who survive lightning strikes, the fernlike scars can carry intense stigma.

“If it comes to a girl of marriageable age, it becomes a social trauma,” says Mr. Srivastava, noting how there’s a common myth that lightning is a way of cursing sinners. “The biggest challenge is lack of public awareness.”

A way forward

The good news is that injuries and deaths from lightning are almost always avoidable. Hundreds can be saved by getting across a simple message: Avoid trees during storms. But India must work on spreading that message the last mile, says Dr. Mishra. This can involve low-tech solutions such as scribbling lightning warnings on blackboards in village squares or making sure safety information is available in local languages, he says. 

Courtesy of Sanjay Srivastava/Climate Resilient Observing Systems Promotion Council

Sanjay Srivastava (right), convener of the Lightning Resilient India Campaign, poses for a photo at a public awareness campaign in Bolpur, West Bengal, Sept. 24, 2023.

In communicating warnings and safety advice to the most at-risk rural populations, a crucial link is the village council, says Mr. Srivastava. He argues that the government must involve these small but important bodies in disaster management, and advocates for lightning-safe shelters in every community. Currently, their numbers are negligible, he says.

Others are working to improve warning systems. Scientists such as IITM’s Sunil Pawar are trying to use artificial intelligence to accurately predict lightning at a micro level – a cluster of villages, for instance – and at least three hours in advance, so officials have time to act. 

More localized research is also needed to understand the myriad of factors leading to deaths, says Dr. Pawar. His state of Maharashtra doesn’t see high lightning activity but still registers many lightning-related deaths, partly because lightning tends to occur there during the afternoon, when people are usually outdoors. 

While the nationwide death toll hasn’t budged, individual districts show change is possible. With the help of a door-to-door awareness campaign, Odisha’s Balasore was able to reduce annual deaths from about 35 to three. Knowing palm trees can act as natural conductors to absorb lightning flashes, Odisha has also begun a massive plantation drive.

Overall, Dr. Pawar feels encouraged by the growing interest in lightning safety. A few decades ago, nobody seemed to understand how deadly lightning was. Now he gets a call nearly every day from some state government asking what it can do.

Great books can change lives; they have changed mine. My favorite authors include writers of every hue, but what baffles me is that the work of Black writers seems to get highlighted only during Black History Month. Great prose is for every reader, and the celebration of it should not be limited to the month of February.

As a Black writer, I also feel a duty to highlight the work of other Black writers that I think would otherwise be ignored. Here are five fiction debuts that are worth reading during Black History Month – and in any other month.

When present mirrors the past

In Rae Giana Rashad’s “The Blueprint,” the year is 2030, years after the United States has been defeated by a powerful group called The Order. 

Under The Order, women have no voice. Black women are reduced to having their lives determined by an algorithm, which determines whom they will marry. But before they marry, as early as age 15, they are farmed out to white men to breed with. 

Rashad’s protagonist, Solenne Bonet, is the descendant of an enslaved concubine, Henriette, who lived more than two centuries earlier. Solenne’s life mirrors that of her ancestor when she is essentially held in bondage by a powerful and wealthy white man, Bastien Martin.  

As Solenne starts to write Henriette’s story, Bastien, a scion of Thomas Jefferson, begins a very controlling relationship with her. Her first kiss, first sexual encounter, and first moments of intimacy happen with Bastien. She hates her situation, which reflects that of Henriette. Like her ancestor, she tastes a small slice of freedom, only to have it snatched away. 

At times, the path Solenne should take seems clear, but Rashad does a masterful job of making her a flawed human who can’t get out of her own way. As in Henriette’s story, the groundwork for a better future is laid down at the end.

Filled with themes such as regret, rebellion, tyranny, and courage, “The Blueprint” is a compelling read.

Twisted altruism, vigilante justice

If first novels indicate career trajectory, Jahmal Mayfield has a future in crime fiction. His “Smoke Kings” is a fresh take on current events and history, mixed with social commentary. 

Mayfield’s story revolves around a vigilante group called the Smoke Kings. It targets the offspring of racist, mostly white men, who committed heinous acts against people of color decades earlier. The Smoke Kings deludes itself into thinking that it has historic, altruistic reasons for exacting justice, but the group’s beginnings are rooted in a more recent event. One of its own was killed by a white gang, a murder that has gone unpunished.  

There is always one weak link in a crew or one person who thinks that he or she is smarter than the group. “Smoke Kings” doesn’t depart from this track in building up hostility between two main characters, Isiah, a Korean man and the only member of the group who is not Black, and Nate, a militant Black man who can’t admit his prejudice. They travel the country trying to right wrongs, but two of their jobs bring them to the attention of a conscientious, bigoted former cop and a hate-filled white militia man. Isiah and Nate are caught and have to escape rogue justice before they get killed. 

“Smoke Kings” is a fast-paced story of twisted altruism that is not only entertaining but also thought-provoking.

Facing hate and racism 

The best way for me to appreciate “Neighbors and Other Stories” was to imagine myself as a journalist writing about integration, civil rights, and Jim Crow. That is how I got the full scope of the brilliance of Diane Oliver’s work. Oliver, a short story writer, died at age 22 in 1966, leaving a nearly forgotten trove of work behind. Only four of her stories were published during her short life.

The first story in the collection, “Neighbors,” imagines a Southern Black family that is consumed by fear and anxiety. The school-age son, Tommy, will be the first Black student to enroll at Jefferson Davis School after Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled it unconstitutional to separate children in public schools on the basis of race. Think of Ruby Bridges, the first Black student to integrate an elementary school in the South, and ponder what it must have been like for a family faced with that task. How did they sleep? Did they sleep? Why go through with integration under the constant threat of violence?

Nerves are frayed. Tommy is afraid he will be harmed. His parents have received threats against his and their lives. The night before school, the home is vandalized and a front window is shattered. On the first day, his parents teeter between not wanting to run the risk and having to decide if what’s best for Black people should come before their family.

While Oliver’s stories are fiction, the subject matter, such as interracial marriage and the poor treatment of Black domestic workers, rings true. “Neighbors and Other Stories” offers an amalgamation of tales – some harrowing – told by a writer who knew all too well what it meant to be racialized. Oliver’s insights give the powerful storytelling that much more punch.

If reparations became law

A line of desperate, hopeful, and excited Black people wraps around a Mississippi library. They have come from all over the United States to uncover their families’ histories. If they can prove their ancestors were enslaved, they would be eligible for reparations money. At the same time, a mob of angry white people snarls, yells obscenities, and hurls glass bottles at them. 

In “Acts of Forgiveness,” Maura Cheeks imagines what the U.S. would look like if the government passed a law requiring reparations. 

Willie Revel is the protagonist, the youngest and only daughter of Max and Lourdes Revel, an upper-middle-class Black family in Philadelphia. Willie has ambition and career prospects as a journalist. One job offer has come from a college professor, Elizabeth Johnson, who is starting a political career that will make her president.

Max, who once shunned Willie as heir to his construction business, has health issues that prevent him from running the company and begs her to trade in her career to come home and help him. Then President Johnson gets the Forgiveness Act passed, which will give the progeny of formerly enslaved people $175,000 per person if they can prove their ancestry.

This starts a national dash to the South to unearth official records, and it brings out the worst in many who oppose it. The Revel family is torn between desperately needing the money to save its business, and wondering if the hassle is worth it. And not everyone is convinced the government will keep its promise.

This book starts out slowly, but gets better with each page. Cheeks, daughter of former NBA player Maurice Cheeks, starts with an intriguing premise and weaves it into a fascinating story. “Acts of Forgiveness” is a thoughtful tale that coaxes readers to ponder what would happen if a reparations law were ever passed. 

Ambition atop Everest

In Karen Outen’s novel, “Dixon, Descending,” two intrepid brothers decide to conquer Mount Everest together. 

The first brother, Dixon, is a former Olympic hopeful in track and field who missed making the team by the narrowest of margins. Nate is the older brother who was always seen to be a risk-taker. 

As the two begin their climb, Nate’s status as the risk-taker crumbles. That causes a slow burning resentment in Dixon, but not enough to keep them from ascending. After all, the brothers trained for a year and have spent tens of thousands of dollars.

Nate can’t make it to the top, but Dixon does, and when tragedy happens during his descent, Dixon starts to unravel. He may have been the first Black American to climb the highest mountain in the world, but was the cost too high? 

After the Everest trip, Dixon “descends” in other areas of his life: as a school psychologist and as a family man. Grief, guilt, and the brittle fact that despite the worst happening, life keeps moving forward, lead Dixon to a reckoning with sorrow and guilt.  

“Dixon, Descending,” with its poignant passages, is ultimately a heart-wrenching story of great loss.

Reuters/file

A solar-powered irrigation system in the Indian state of Jharkhand.

For decades, one of the world’s lesser-known food agencies, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), provided grants and loans to small-scale rural farmers who grew mainly three grains: wheat, rice, and maize. Then as climate change forced a need for more innovation in farming, the fund realized it must listen to all farmers, especially Indigenous ones. Today it supports “underutilized” grains – such as barnyard millet, foxtail millet, finger millet, and little millet – many of which can survive extreme weather.

The great shift in thinking was that ingenuity may lie far behind the lab scientist devising new species of crops. It is freely found among those small farmers who till less than 25 acres and produce one-third of the world’s food.

Last week, at a global meeting of IFAD in Rome, the focus was on how innovation anywhere can help create a food-secure future. “Many innovations are developed in collaboration with the people we work with on the ground,” said the fund’s president, Alvaro Lario. “Agri-entrepreneurs in developing countries are some of the most innovative and dynamic entrepreneurs in the world.

“We don’t bring innovations to them – they bring innovations to us.”

He added that rural people’s unique knowledge of farming and local landscapes is increasingly offering solutions to adapting to climate change. “There are real grounds for hope,” Dr. Lario said.

For the rural poor who often live in harsh environments, living sustainably is second nature, requiring individual creativity as well as collaboration with others. When material resources are limited, such as during a drought, rural people rely on an unlimited resource: innovation.

An estimated two-thirds of the world’s poor people work in agriculture. Their centuries-old abilities at problem-solving remain a largely untapped resource for a world coping with new weather patterns. The task for food agencies like IFAD, said Dr. Lario, is to ensure “that the voice of small-scale producers and vulnerable rural communities resonates ... from the local levels to global forums.”