Stay In Execution Granted For Death Row Inmate James Coddington

OKLAHOMA CITY (KOKH) — A day before Christmas Eve, James Coddington was granted a stay of execution.

The state of Oklahoma planned to execute Coddington on March 10th.

Coddington was convicted of beating an elderly man to death with a hammer in 1997 after he refused to loan Coddington money..

In October 2021, Coddington was added back to a federal lawsuit over the state’s execution protocols.

Coddington had originally been kicked out of the lawsuit because they had declined on a form “to propose an alternative method of carrying out their sentence of death.”

After being kicked out, Coddington and five other death row inmates had their execution dates scheduled by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals. Coddington was set to die on March 10th.

James Coddington

Coddington claimed he had made a mistake on the form and wanted to choose firing squad as an alternative method of death. He was added back to the lawsuit in October.

He was originally scheduled for execution because he was one of six religious objectors who refused to list an alternative execution method while a challenge to the states lethal injection protocol moves forward. However, his attorneys and the state agree he thought he had submitted the alternative execution method.

Earlier in December, both the state and Coddington’s lawyers agreed to stay his execution until the trial over the state’s execution protocols, scheduled to begin Feb of 2022, was over.