James French

James Donald French (June 16, 1936 – August 10, 1966) was an American double murderer who was the last person executed under Oklahoma's death penalty laws prior to Furman v. Georgia, which suspended capital punishment in the United States from 1972 until 1976.

French was convicted of the 1961 murder of Eddie Lee Shelton, his cellmate, while he was serving a sentence of life imprisonment for the 1958 murder of motorist Franklin Boone. French ultimately faced trial three times for Shelton's murder, with his sentence being overturned twice; French requested a death sentence and waived his appeals, fighting multiple efforts from attorneys hired by third parties to spare his life despite application of the death penalty otherwise being at a near standstill in Oklahoma and the United States as a whole.

Aside from being the final person executed in Oklahoma before the Furman v. Georgia ruling, French was the third-to-last person executed in the United States prior to the ruling, surpassed only by Aaron Mitchell in California and Luis Monge in Colorado, who were respectively executed in April 1967 and June 1967. French was the only person executed in the United States in 1966.

Background and murders French was born on June 16, 1936, and adopted by a couple from Peoria, Illinois, Mr. and Mrs. C.D. French, 19 days after he was born. When French was five years old, he allegedly stabbed a man who he believed was flirting with his mother. When he was a second grade elementary student, he attempted an arson attack on a schoolhouse. Later, after "a forged check spree," he was committed to a psychiatric hospital in Illinois for six months. Later, he was committed to a federal reformatory in Ohio for a 19-month stint. He moved to California and attempted to find work as a racecar driver but was eventually barred from this line of work. Overall, prior to the murder which landed him in prison with a life sentence, French was committed to psychiatric hospitals three times, including one stint in the Eastern State Hospital in Vinita, Oklahoma. While reflecting on these visits, French told reporter Bob Gregory that every committal ended with authorities ultimately finding him mentally sane.

Murder of Franklin Boone At the time of the murder for which French was executed, French was serving a life sentence in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester for strangling Franklin R. Boone, a 25-year-old West Virginia motorist who had offered French a ride from Amarillo, Texas to Oklahoma while French was hitchhiking, at Stroud, Oklahoma, on December 4, 1958.

French pleaded guilty to Boone's murder and requested a death sentence, but the court sentenced him to life imprisonment in 1959, against his wishes, likely due to a plea deal between his court-appointed attorney and the prosecutor trying his case.

Dismayed, French wrote several letters to the governor asking for a new trial, one in which he could obtain a death sentence, but the authorities did not respond to his letters. French would later state that he determined Shelton "wasn't fit to live. He deserved to die".

At the time of French's execution, the death penalty was at a near standstill nationwide since about late 1964, as a result of changing sentiments towards the death penalty. Oklahoma's last execution before French's was that of Richard Dare, who died in the electric chair on June 1, 1963. Dare was executed for murdering his father-in-law and notably spent 717 days awaiting execution after his death sentence, which was unusually long for the time. Dare was executed only after a protracted legal struggle.

Charles Owens was quoted as saying, almost two decades later, that had French not aggressively pursued his own death, he likely never would have been executed. After the Furman v. Georgia ruling six years after French's execution, The story appeared in 1977 in The Book of Lists. However, contemporaneous accounts of the execution confirm that when prison warden Ray Page asked if French had any last words, French actually replied: "Everything's already been said."

French himself did make a quip about French fries. However, the remark was not made at his execution, but in days prior, when French discussed his upcoming execution with reporter Bob Gregory. Gregory attended the execution and corroborated that French's real last words were, "Everything's already been said." Earlier, however, Gregory had met with French for an interview in the office of the warden of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. During the interview, Gregory reported that the following exchange took place:

Aftermath The execution of James French was the last execution by electric chair in the United States before Furman v. Georgia, and the only execution to occur in the United States in 1966. Overall, it was the third to last nationwide, only being succeeded by that of Aaron Mitchell in California's gas chamber on April 12, 1967, and Luis Monge in Colorado's gas chamber on June 2, 1967.

After the moratorium on capital punishment was lifted, Gary Gilmore became the first person to be executed nationwide when he volunteered for death by firing squad in Utah on January 17, 1977. Two years later, the first post-Furman electrocution occurred when John Spenkelink was executed in Florida on May 25, 1979. The first post-Furman execution in Oklahoma did not occur until September 10, 1990, when Charles Coleman was executed via lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. It was the first execution carried out in Oklahoma in over twenty-four years, since that of French's in 1966.