Nov. 6
OKLAHOMA----impending execution
Court refuses to block Oklahoma execution
The Supreme Court has refused to halt the execution of an Oklahoma inmate who
claims he is mentally incompetent and ineligible for the death penalty.
Convicted killer Garry Allen is scheduled to die Tuesday, 26 years after his
fiancee was murdered, authorities said.
The justices said in an order Tuesday that they will not grant a stay of
execution to 56-year-old Garry Thomas Allen, who is set to die by lethal
injection Tuesday evening at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.
Allen was convicted in the shooting death of his fiancee outside a children's
day care in Oklahoma City in 1986.
Allen's attorneys had argued that he was incompetent when he entered a guilty
plea in the case and that his mental condition has continued to deteriorate.
Appellate courts have rejected those claims.
(source: Associated Press)
************************
Oklahoma prepares to execute Garry Allen after 3 stays
An Oklahoma City man whose execution has been halted 3 times while legal
questions about his mental health were debated is scheduled to be executed
Tuesday night.
Garry Thomas Allen, 56, was last scheduled for execution in April when a
federal judge issued a stay to consider appeals arguing that he is mentally ill
and therefore not eligible for execution.
Thomas killed the mother of his 2 children on November 21, 1986, gunning her
down in front of daycare workers after she arrived to pick up the couple's 2-
and 6-year-old sons. Gail Titsworth had moved out of Thomas' home 4 days
earlier and rebuffed his pleas to return.
He was drunk and shot the woman 4 times before a police officer found him in a
nearby alley and shot him in the face during a struggle over the officer's gun.
Allen lost his left eye and sustained brain damage from the gunshot wound,
according to court testimony, but a jury found him competent to stand trial.
Allen, who had a long history of drug and alcohol abuse and had been
hospitalized for psychological problems, insisted on entering a "blind" guilty
plea to murder, meaning the plea was entered without his knowing what his
punishment would be.
His plea was intended to spare the emotions of his family and the family of the
woman he killed, records show.
"I can't see making a bad matter worse, bringing up the problems we were having
and what motivated me to do what I did. It just makes things worse than ever,"
he said, according to court transcripts.
Years of legal appeals focused on his mental competency. In 2005 a state pardon
and parole board voted 4-1 to commute Allen's death sentence to life in prison,
but Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin overruled the recommendation earlier this
year.
Defense attorneys also have unsuccessfully raised claims that Allen's mental
health has deteriorated to such an extent during his years in prison that he no
longer is eligible for the death penalty.
Unless a judge intervenes, Allen will become the fifth man executed in Oklahoma
this year. The state's executions are carried out by lethal injection.
(source: Reuters)
CALIFORNIA:
Jerry Brown votes for measure to repeal death penalty
Gov. Jerry Brown this morning said he voted for a ballot initiative to repeal
the death penalty, after declining during the campaign to say how he would vote
on the measure.
The Democratic governor had maintained a careful distance from Proposition 34.
Despite his longstanding moral reservations about capital punishment, Brown
enforced the death penalty as state attorney general and promised during his
gubernatorial campaign in 2010 to uphold the law if elected.
Brown's vote was as expected. He was 21 when he persuaded his father, then-Gov.
Pat Brown, to grant convicted rapist Caryl Chessman a temporary stay of
execution. Later, as governor from 1975 to 1983, Jerry Brown vetoed death
penalty legislation, though his veto was overridden by the Legislature.
Near his home in the Oakland hills this morning, the governor was asked about
Proposition 34 outside the fire station where he cast his ballot.
"I voted 'Yes,'" he said. "Of course."
(source: The Sacramento Bee)
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