Oklahoma begins 25-person execution spree with James Coddington, despite board’s recommendation for clemency

State set to execute roughly one inmate a month through 2024

Oklahoma executed death row inmate James Coddington on Thursday morning, despite the state parole board’s recommendation earlier this month that the 50-year-old be granted clemency.

Coddington, who was pronounced dead at 10.16am local time without apparent complications, was convicted of the 1997 murder of his friend Albert Hale during a drug binge.

In his last words, Coddington reportedly thanked his friends, family, and attorneys, and said he wasn’t mad that Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt ultimately rejected his clemency bid on Wednesday.

 "I don’t blame you, and I forgive you,” Coddington said before the execution.

Mitchell Hale, Albert’s son, told witnesses to the execution that it “closes this chapter” of his family’s life.

"Today’s not a good day, it’s not a bad day, it’s just a new day for our family," he said.

He also faulted Coddington for not mentioning Albert Hale in his final words.

"He never apologized, he never mentioned my daddy, never mentioned my family," he said. "So, there was no true remorse."

Earlier this month, the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board recommended that Coddington be given clemency, a life sentence with the possibility of parole rather than be executed.

At the clemency hearing, Coddington said he was sorry for killing his friend Hale, and that since being in prison he had kicked a lifelong drug addiction.

“I can’t apologise enough for what I did,” he said, adding, “I’m clean, I know God, I’m not … I’m not a vicious murderer.”

Coddington’s lawyers argued jurors never heard evidence of the man’s mental state when he was originally convicted, after a court improperly excluded evidence he was experiencing drug-induced psychosis that left him unable to form moral judgments.

An appeals courts later found the evidence was improperly kept out, but a federal court ultimately pronounced the error “harmless.”

Supporters of Coddington also pointed to his traumatic childhood contributing to the murder.

Coddington’s mother went to prison when he was a toddler, and he was raised by a father addicted to drugs and alcohol, who put alcohol in Coddington’s baby bottles.

The executed inmate began using drugs when he was a child.

The killing marks the first of a controversial string of 25 planned killings in a state with a long record of botched executions.

Executions went on hiatus in Oklahoma for six years after a string of errors including mixed up drugs and detainees visibly suffering in the execution chamber.

In October 2021, the state resumed killings with John Grant, who convulsed and vomitted before dying.