James Donald French (June 16, 1936[a] – 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 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.

While reflecting on these visits, French told reporter Bob Gregory that every commital ended with authorities ultimately finding him mentally sane.

All three trials involved French making a full, voluntary, and eager confession to Shelton's murder and giving the exact same reason each time.

[4] During his time on death row, psychiatric tests revealed that French was of above average intelligence.

Unlike most death row inmates, French had completed high school and two years of post-secondary education at college.

His basic (and obviously abnormal) motive in murdering his inoffensive cellmate was to force the state to deliver to him the electrocution to which he felt entitled and which he deeply desired.

[4] After French "resisted all efforts to spare his life", he walked calmly into the execution chamber at 10:00 p.m. on August 10, 1966.

Oklahoma's last execution before French's was that of Richard Dare, who died in the electric chair on June 1, 1963.

[10] 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,[4] the U.S. Supreme Court placed a nationwide moratorium on the death penalty, causing every state to re-sentence all condemned inmates to life imprisonment.

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: [S]haking hands as French prepared to return to death row, he leaned over to say: "If I were covering my execution, do you know what I'd say in the newspaper headline?"

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.