An Oklahoma appeals court on Wednesday ordered a stay of execution to be lifted for a man on death row, clearing the way for him to receive a lethal injection for killing a Tulsa woman in 1999.
John Fitzgerald Hanson, 61, has been scheduled to be put to death Thursday, but a district court judge temporarily halted the execution this week after Hanson’s attorneys argued he didn’t receive a fair clemency hearing before the state’s Pardon and Parole Board. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals ordered that temporary stay of execution be lifted.
Hanson’s attorneys had argued the 3-2 vote against recommending clemency was tainted because one of the members of the board had worked for the same district attorney’s office that prosecuted his case. The Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office maintained the district court judge didn’t have the authority to issue a stay of execution.
Hanson was sentenced to death in Tulsa County after he was convicted of carjacking, kidnapping and killing Mary Bowles. Authorities said he and an accomplice kidnapped the woman from a Tulsa shopping mall.
Hanson had been serving a life sentence in federal prison in Louisiana for several unrelated federal conviction. But President Donald Trump's administration expedited his transfer to Oklahoma custody in March, following through on a sweeping executive order to more actively support the death penalty.
