Oklahoma sues federal prisons for inmate it wants to execute

Hanson, 58, has a clemency listening to set for Nov. 9. Unless clemency is beneficial and granted by Gov. Kevin Stitt, the inmate is scheduled to obtain a deadly injection on Dec. 15 for his conviction within the 1999 killing of an aged girl.

Mary Agnes Bowles, 77, was killed in a carjacking and kidnapping outdoors a Tulsa mall in 1999.

The U.S. Justice Department beneath Democratic President Joe Biden introduced final 12 months that it was halting federal executions. That step got here after a historic use of capital punishment beneath Donald Trump’s presidency, with 13 executions carried out in six months.

Hanson is serving a life sentence for quite a few federal convictions, together with being a profession legal, that predate his state dying sentence.

Attorneys listed as representing Hanson didn’t return telephone calls for remark Thursday.

Kunzweiler stated he requested O’Connor’s assist for the return of the inmate. The district lawyer stated he sought the lawyer normal’s assist after his August letter requesting Hanson’s switch was denied by the warden of the Louisiana facility as being “not in the public’s best interest.”

The choice was “infuriating,” Kunzweiler stated.

“I’ve by no means in my 33 years as a prosecutor encountered this degree of refusal to switch an inmate from one jurisdiction to one other,” Kunzweiler stated.

After being contacted by Kunzweiler, O’Connor despatched a request for Hanson’s switch to Bureau of Prisons Regional Director Heriberto Tellez in Grand Prairie, Texas, which additionally was denied.

“As inmate Hanson is presently subject to a life term imposed in federal court, his transfer to state authorities for a state execution is not in the public interest,” in accordance to the Oct. 17 letter from Tellez.

Robert Dunham, government director of the nationwide Death Penalty Information Center, stated he’s unaware of the bureau beforehand declining to switch an inmate to a state for execution. But he famous that such a switch will not be required.

“The question here is, is this an abuse of discretion (by the bureau),” Dunham stated. “It’s hard to make a determination about that because the letter doesn’t explain.”

Dunham stated it was not clear whether or not the refusal to switch Hanson is said to the federal authorities’s halting of executions beneath the Biden administration.

“Given Oklahoma’s history of botched executions, that’s an appropriate question,” Dunham stated.

The prisons bureau declined remark, citing the official’s earlier responses.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which represents the BOP, additionally declined to remark and stated a response might be filed by the expedited Oct. 30 deadline set by the court docket.

The lawsuit, filed within the Northern District of Texas as a result of that’s the place Tellez relies, contends Oklahoma faces “imminent harm” if Hanson will not be returned.

“Oklahoma’s execution policy begins thirty-five days prior to the execution date” of Dec. 15, in accordance to the submitting. “The Oklahoma Department of Corrections have to be ready to provoke the method on Nov. 10, 2022, with Hanson in custody earlier than that date.”

The submitting additionally argues that the federal authorities’s refusal to give up Hanson usurps the state’s authority.

“Defendants have also, in essence, lawlessly threatened to commute Hanson’s sentence to life imprisonment,” from the dying penalty he obtained.

Oklahoma has executed six inmates because the state resumed finishing up the dying penalty in October 2021 after a sequence of issues within the dying chamber.

The state’s subsequent scheduled execution, that of Richard Stephen Fairchild for the beating dying of his girlfriend’s 3-year-old son in 1993, is about for Nov. 17.