By SAMANTHA VICENT World Staff Writer | Posted: Friday, December 11, 2015 12:00 am
Jerry Chrisman
Chrisman
McALESTER — Oklahoma’s highest-security prison, home to the state’s death row unit, now has an interim warden following the retirement of Anita Trammell in October.
The Oklahoma Department of Corrections announced Thursday that Jerry Chrisman, the warden at Jackie Brannon Correctional Center, will lead operations at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.
Chrisman replaces Maurice Warrior, who has been acting warden since Trammell’s retirement announcement on Oct. 27
The JBCC, a minimum security prison, and the OSP are about a half-mile apart in McAlester.
“The close proximity between the two facilities will allow him to fulfill both roles,” the state Department of Corrections stated in a news release.
No timetable has been set as to when a permanent warden will be named by the board of corrections at OSP, the release states.
Raised in the Stuart area, Chrisman began his DOC career at OSP in 1989 as a correctional officer. Earlier this year he was named warden at the JBCC facility.
The JBCC recently made news for reaching 100 percent staffing for correctional officers, which is the first time the facility has been fully staffed in years. It is the only fully staffed facility in the state, according to the DOC.
Trammell, the first female warden of OSP, has appeared before a multicounty grand jury convened by the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office relating to an investigation over the handling of the Jan. 15 execution of Charles Warner and the events leading up to a stay being granted for Richard Glossip on Sept. 30, the day he was scheduled to be executed.
DOC Director Robert Patton announced Dec. 4 he was leaving the agency to move to Arizona so he would be closer to his family. He will be deputy warden at Arizona State Prison-Kingman, a private facility managed by the GEO Group, after his resignation takes effect Jan. 31, a GEO Group spokesman told the Tulsa World on Monday.
The Attorney General’s Office announced its investigation shortly after Glossip’s stay, which Gov. Mary Fallin issued after learning the DOC received a drug that is not allowed per its lethal injection protocol. The supplier provided potassium acetate rather than potassium chloride without giving the DOC advance notice, officials said at the time.
An autopsy report first obtained by The Oklahoman revealed that Warner was killed using a combination of midazolam, rocuronium bromide and potassium acetate, which violated the DOC’s lethal injection policy. The drug substitution did not come to light until the autopsy report was publicly released, and it’s unclear whether officials or the execution team knew it was using the wrong drug to end Warner’s life.