Norman — Susan Sharp puts a face on death.

Through her death penalty and criminology capstone classes, Sharp presents individuals to her students many Oklahomans assumed could never show their faces again — those who were sentenced to death.

No stranger to capital punishment, Oklahoma has the third largest death row population per capita, and after the Supreme Court’s reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976, Oklahoma has held more executions per capita than any other state.

Yet what concerns Sharp is whether or not people are strangers to all the facts.

“No matter what your stance on the death penalty is, we all have a moral obligation to hear all the facts,” Sharp says. “It’s an obligation as a citizen to be informed about something this serious — it’s about human life.”

One of those facts is that in 26 states, 135 people have been released with evidence of their innocence from death row since 1973, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

In Oklahoma, eight people have been exonerated after being sentenced to death.

Along with those exonerated, she also invites to her class families of victims and legal counsel from both sides. Sharp says she isn’t trying to change her students’ stances on the death penalty, just open their eyes to all of the facts.

“I’ve had a student who wanted to be on the execution panel, and in the same class I’ve had students adamantly opposed to the death penalty,” Sharp says. “One of my ground rules is respect each other’s opinions.”

Sharp says she used to be indifferent toward the death penalty, not considering it in terms of support or opposition, as it did not affect her life.

But her views changed drastically during the first year she taught the criminology capstone. While reading a book’s section on the death penalty, she became aware of the number of wrongful convictions. It left her appalled.

“I became very interested in [capital punishment], and it led me into a whole new line of research and involvement in the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty,” she says.

Research led to writing a book, Hidden Victims: The Effects of the Death Penalty on Families of the Accused. Through these avenues, Sharp met some of Oklahoma’s wrongly convicted men.

While she was setting up a fundraiser for OCADP, she met and befriended Ron Williamson, who spent nine years on Oklahoma’s death row before being found innocent.

In 2001, Sharp began having Williamson come speak to her classes. When Sharp brought him to her classes, she said he was mentally ill enough that he had to sit facing and talking only to her, while she relayed his words to the class.

“It was easy for the students to see the harm done as well as his wrongful conviction,” she says.

Williamson died in 2005, but two other wrongly convicted men, Greg Wilhoit and Curtis McCarty, continue to speak to her classes today.

McCarty was just exonerated in 2007 after serving 21 years, 19 of those on death row — nearly as long as the students he speaks to have been alive.

He was convicted of murder with DNA evidence linking him to the crime, however, decades later, DNA tests revealed it was not him. Instead, they matched the state’s lead witness during his trial.

Skylar Herrmann, criminology and sociology senior, took Sharp’s death penalty class in fall 2008. McCarty came and spoke to her class.

Before hearing McCarty speak, she had mixed feelings about the use of capital punishment. Afterwards, her views didn’t change, but her views on the criminal justice system did.

“The justice system didn’t have reliable sources and they used false evidence, so my view on the justice system changed immensely,” she says.

Herrmann says it’s very important people are aware there are people wrongly convicted and sent to death row.

“People need to realize that it does happen, and it’s happening now,” she says.

Allison Phillips, sociology senior, took Sharp’s death penalty class last spring and is currently in her criminology capstone. McCarty spoke to her class.

She says before taking the class, she had never taken a stance on the death penalty. She knew it was a controversial topic, yet she never looked at any information about it. McCarty caused her to examine the issue. Now, she bases her views on factual information and first-hand experience.

“Hearing Curtis [McCarty] share his experience made the topic a reality, it was not just a controversy on the news anymore. His story could not be ignored by anyone,” Phillips says. “If [McCarty’s story] did not change people’s views on the topic, it certainly made them question why they believe what they do.”