By Kapish Kalita
OKLAHOMA, OK – Richard Norman Rojem, 66, was executed by the state of Oklahoma Thursday, June 27, according to the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (OK-CADP).
OK-CADP added, “Mr. Rojem was convicted of the 1984 rape and murder of seven-year-old Layla Dawn Cummings and “on Monday, June 17, the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted to deny clemency for Mr. Rojem by a vote of 5-0.”
According to City News OKC, “Rojem, 66, has been on death row for nearly four decades” and was “Oklahoma’s longest-serving death row prisoner.”
The situation surrounding Rojem’s execution was controversial, wrote the Associated Press, which reported “during last week’s clemency hearing, Rojem’s attorney (Jack Fisher) told the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, ‘If my client’s DNA is not present, he should not be convicted.’”
OK-CADP, according to City News OKC, held a “demonstration outside” of “the Governor’s Mansion… in Oklahoma City.”
Dr. Elizabeth Overman, OK-CADP Vice-Chair, stated, “No state has the right to carry out the death penalty” because it is “immoral…the intentional killing of human beings by their government is immoral” and “unjust because it is irreversible.”
Overman added that “the death penalty is ineffective because it does not deter crime” with “no data that shows fewer people commit crimes out of fear of capital punishment,” and Oklahoma is not “any safer because the state serially carries out judicial homicide.”
According to City News OKC, Overman added, “The gravity of Layla Dawn Cummings’ tragic death is marred when the search for truth is squandered because the state does not assume responsibility to make sure that justice is administered without legitimate questions about procedures and processes.”
City News OKC noted Rojem is the “thirteenth person to be executed in Oklahoma after a six-year moratorium ended in October 2021.” 
