OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A death row minister who was inside the execution chamber during Oklahoma’s last lethal injection sued the Department of Corrections for $10 million on Friday, alleging the agency and its spokesman defamed him in a statement to the media.
The Rev. Jeff Hood of Arkansas alleges in the federal lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City that the Jan. 9 statement attributed to Department of Corrections spokesman Josh Ward was false and defamatory.
“The words that Defendant Ward of the ODOC released worldwide have injured Plaintiff Hood’s reputation and caused obvious emotional distress,” the lawsuit states.
The DOC’s statement was released after the agency decided to prohibit Hood from being inside the execution chamber during the Jan. 12 lethal injection of Scott Eizember, for whom Hood had been a spiritual adviser.
In the statement, Ward cited Hood’s anti-death penalty activism and said Hood had “been arrested multiple times for such outbursts in other states, demonstrating a blatant disregard for the experiences of victims’ families and the solemnity of the process.”
The agency later reversed course and allowed Hood inside the chamber during Eizember’s execution.
Source: The Associated, Staff, March 24, 2023
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde
