Oklahoma Executes James Coddington for 1997 Hammer Killing
McALESTER, Okla.—Oklahoma executed a man Thursday for a 1997 killing.
James Coddington, 50, received a lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester and was pronounced dead at 10:16 a.m. Gov. Kevin Stitt declined to commute Coddington’s sentence to life in prison without parole and rejected his petition for clemency. Coddington was the fifth Oklahoma inmate to be put to death since the state resumed executions last year.
“To all my family and friends, lawyers, everyone who’s been around me and loved me, thank you,” Coddington said while strapped to a gurney inside the death chamber. “Gov. Stitt, I don’t blame you and I forgive you.”…