OdysseyNetworks

This week the State of Oklahoma plans to execute two men after a legal battle over the drugs used for lethal injection. Manufacturers of those drugs have become increasingly reluctant to supply them to prisons for use in executions and some states, like Oklahoma, are developing their own mixtures to do the job. The manufacturers' reluctance may have something to do with changing public opinion about the death penalty in the US -- according to Pew Research Center, the number of Americans who support the death penalty continues to decline, from 78% in 1996 to 55% in 2013. Both inmates in the Oklahoma case, Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner, are African American, which is significant. "Today and historically, race is the greatest predictor of who gets the death penalty in the United States," says Byron Stevenson, Executive Director of the Equal Justice Institute. Show less