death penalty

OKLAHOMA – Green Country Family Waits Decades For Justice

TULSA, Oklahoma  april 24 source : http://www.newson6.com

For the next 20 years, Debbie and her mother drove to the prison twice a year to oppose parole for both men.

Watch the video news: click here 

Clayton’s daughter and her mother

 

 

 

A Green Country family has waited nearly four decades for justice. Michael Selsor was given a death sentence for murdering Clayton Chandler in 1975. Selsor’s execution is next week.

Chandler’s family has been fighting for 37 years for this execution, waiting while Selsor had years of appeals and a second trial. Now that clemency has been denied, they’re finally allowed to tell their story.

On September 15th, 1975, Clayton Chandler was getting ready to close the U-Tote-M convenience store, along with worker Ina Morris, when Michael Selsor and Richard Dodson came in to rob it.

They later told police they agreed ahead of time: leave no witnesses.

“He had a choice,” daughter Debbie Huggins said. “He did not have to kill Dad; he did not have to pull the trigger.”

After getting around $500 from the register, Selsor shot Clayton six times; he died on the floor. Dodson shot Morris in the head, neck and shoulder, but she survived. The two men were later arrested in California.

At the first trial, a jury found Selsor guilty and sentenced him to die. But the next year, the Supreme Court declared the death penalty unconstitutional and seven years after that, Selsor was up for parole.

“We thought our nightmare in hell was losing Dad, little did we know what was in store for us,” Debbie said.

For the next 20 years, Debbie and her mother drove to the prison twice a year to oppose parole for both men.

“Every year you went before the parole board,” Debbie said. “It took you back to the night he died, gut wrenching, the fear, the trauma, the feelings, they all come forward.”

Selsor’s many appeals paid off and he was granted a new trial 20 years after his first, but that jury also found him guilty and sentenced him to death.

More Than 36 years after Clayton Chandler was gunned down, Selsor is scheduled to die.

“No remorse, no I’m sorry, nothing but hate,” Debbie said.

Debbie says she and her mother were not driven to fight all these years out of a sense of revenge, only by the desire to get justice for the man they loved and lost.

“My dad did not have a choice,” Debbie said. “He’s gone. Michael Selsor should pay the same price.”

Both Selsor and Dodson had records when arrested for murdering Clayton. Plus, Selsor told police they’d committed four robberies before the one they weren’t arrested for. In previous robberies, they stabbed the clerk and shot another with a shotgun.

Selsor’s execution is next Tuesday.

ARIZONA – Samuel Villegas Lopez – execution – May 16 RESCHEDULED

 Inmate 043833, Samuel V. Lopez

On October 29, 1986, Lopez broke into the apartment of 59-year-old Estafana Holmes. Lopez raped, beat, and stabbed Ms. Holmes. Her body was found nude from the waist down, with her pajama bottoms tied around her eyes. A lace scarf was crammed tightly into her mouth. She had been stabbed 23 times in the left breast and upper chest, three times in her lower abdomen, and her throat was cut. Lopez’ body fluids matched seminal fluids found in Ms. Holmes’ body.

PROCEEDINGS

Presiding Judge: Hon. Peter T. D’Angelo
Prosecutor:Paul Ahler
Defense Counsel: Joel Brown
Start of Trial: April 16, 1987
Verdict: April 27, 1987
Sentencing: June 25, 1987
Resentencing: August 3, 1990

Aggravating Circumstances
Especially heinous, cruel or depraved

PUBLISHED OPINIONS
State v. Lopez (Samuel V.), 163 Ariz. 108, 786 P.2d 959 (1990).
State v. Lopez (Samuel V.), 175 Ariz. 407, 857 P.2d 1261 (1993).

affidavit of Samuel villegas Lopez (us.court) pdf file

petition for post conviction relief (us court) pdf file

………………………………………………………

May 23, Source : http://www.kpho.com

The Arizona Supreme Court has denied a petition to review the case of a death row inmate set for execution next week.

Lawyers for Samuel Villegas Lopez had asked the state’s high court to review a lower court’s order dismissing his petition for post-conviction relief on March 30.

The state Supreme Court issued its ruling Wednesday without comment. There’s no immediate response from Lopez’s attorneys.

The 49-year-old Lopez is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection May 16 at the state prison in Florence in what would be the fourth execution in Arizona this year.

Lopez was convicted of raping, robbing and stabbing a 59-year-old woman to death in her Phoenix apartment on Oct. 29, 1986, after what court records described as a “terrible and prolonged struggle.”

————————————————–

PHOENIX (Reuters) – Arizona’s top court issued a stay of execution on Tuesday for death row inmate Samuel Villegas Lopez, a day before he was scheduled to die by lethal injection, to address claims that he had been denied a chance at a fair clemency hearing.

Villegas Lopez was sentenced to death for raping 59-year-old Estafana Holmes and stabbing her to death in a violent, drawn-out assault at her Phoenix apartment in 1986

The Arizona Supreme Court rescheduled his execution for June 27 so that attorneys could address claims that he was denied a fair clemency hearing because some members of the state clemency board had not received a mandated four-week training course.

“We conclude that the interests of justice are best served by staying the pending execution and forthwith issuing … a new warrant of execution, for June 27,” the court said in its ruling.

“The period between now and the new execution date will allow training of new board members and a clemency hearing to be subsequently held by the board,” it added.

He had been due to die by lethal injection at 10 a.m. on Wednesday morning, at the state prison in Florence, some 60 miles southeast of Phoenix.

—————————————————-

Update may 9, 2012 source : http://azcapitoltimes.com

The Arizona Supreme Court has denied a petition to review the case of a death row inmate set for execution next week.

Lawyers for Samuel Villegas Lopez had asked the state’s high court to review a lower court’s order dismissing his petition for post-conviction relief on March 30.

The state Supreme Court issued its ruling Wednesday without comment. There’s no immediate response from Lopez’s attorneys.

The 49-year-old Lopez is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection May 16 at the state prison in Florence in what would be the fourth execution in Arizona this year.

Lopez was convicted of raping, robbing and stabbing a 59-year-old woman to death in her Phoenix apartment on Oct. 29, 1986, after what court records described as a “terrible and prolonged struggle.”

……………………………………………………………………

Update may  7, 2012 source : http://www.azfamily.com

PHOENIX, ARIZ.– Lawyers for a death row inmate set to be executed next week will ask the courts to put a hold on the execution because of concerns about how new members were appointed to the Arizona’s Executive Clemency Board, and whether those new members have had adequate training.

Samuel Villegas Lopez is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday May 16 for the brutal rape and murder of Phoenix woman Estefana “Essie” Holmes in 1986. At his clemency hearing on Monday, his attorneys walked out, claiming the appointments of three new members to the board violated state law.

Kelley Henry, a federal public defender who has worked on Lopez’ case for more than a decade, said she believes there have been at least 16 violations of state statutes surrounding the appointments of the new members.

Among her allegations: that the state violated open meeting laws by failing to properly post information about board vacancies, that the new members have not had the four weeks of training required by statute, and that one of the board members has a clear conflict of interest voting on death penalty cases.

After Henry presented the board with her concerns, the members went into a closed-door executive session for close to an hour. When they re-opened the meeting to the public, they said they believed they could fairly continue the hearing, but Henry and her team disagreed and walked out.

“As we know it at this time, this board does not have the authority to conduct the hearing, or move forward,” Henry said.

After the meeting new board Chairman Jesse Hernandez accused Henry of “grasping at straws” and said he and the other two new members, Melvin Thomas and Brian Livingston, are “more than qualified to serve on the board.”

As for questions regarding the amount of training they’ve one, Hernandez said the training process has been started and that’s within the confines of the law.

Lopez’ attorneys plan to file a lawsuit in court Tuesday asking a judge to step in.

In the meantime, at least one board member, former Attorney General Jack LaSota, said he believed Governor Brewer should vacate the warrant for Lopez’ execution to allow time for the issues to be addressed.

“I think the man is entitled at this point to a hearing by a board that has been determined to be appropriate,” LaSota said, adding, “I think our board is appropriate.”

Matt Benson, a spokesman for the Governor, said the Executive Board of Clemency and the selection committee charged with selecting candidates for the vacant seats acted fully within the law.

Benson said the allegations were nothing more than an attempt to delay justice for the family of Lopez’ victim.

Lopez’ attorneys originally planned to argue before the board that their client’s sentence should be commuted to life without parole because of inadequate legal counsel during his trials and initial appeals.

May 3 , 2012

Us court appeals : pdf file

Update May 2, 2012  Source : http://ktar.com

PHOENIX — Lawyers for an Arizona death-row inmate are fighting his upcoming execution.

Samuel Villegas Lopez’s attorneys argued in one filing Tuesday that three newly appointed clemency board members are unprepared to consider his arguments for mercy.

In another filing Tuesday, they argued that the state Department of Corrections is violating Lopez’s constitutional rights by repeatedly violating its own execution protocol.

Lopez, 49, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection May 16 in what would be the fourth execution in the state this year.

Lopez was convicted of raping, robbing and stabbing Estafana Holmes, 59, to death in her Phoenix apartment in October 1986, after what court records described as a “terrible and prolonged struggle.”

Petitioner – Appellant,: SAMUEL VILLEGAS LOPEZ
Respondent – Appellee,s: CHARLES L. RYAN and GEORGE HERMAN, Warden, Arizona State Prison – Eyman Complex
Case Number: 12-99001
Filed: May 1, 2012
Court: U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Nature of Suit: P. Petitions – Death Penalty
Previous Case: Lopez, et al v. Stewart, et al (2:1998cv00072)
Related articles

ALABAMA- Dothan man sentenced to death for third time – Jerry Jerome Smith

april 18, 2012 source : http://www2.dothaneagle.com

Randolph Flournoy said he’ll never forgive Jerry Jerome Smith for killing his brother more than 15 years ago.

Jerry Smith

“God already done spoken through the judge,” said Flournoy.

Houston County Circuit Court Judge Michael Conaway sentenced 41-year-old Smith to death Wednesday, affirming a recommendation by a jury returned earlier this year.

It became the third time a Houston County judge has sentenced Smith to death for the same capital murder convictions.

A jury found Smith guilty of killing Willie James Flournoy, 40, of Dothan, Theresa Ann Helms, 26, of Wicksburg and David Lee Bennett, 29, of Midland City. The three people were killed at a Sturgeon Court residence on Oct. 19, 1996, which police had described as a crack house. All three people were shot to death in the home.

Several months ago the state Supreme Court upheld Smith’s conviction, but reversed his sentence.

The judge could have affirmed the jury’s recommendation of the death penalty or overturned it and issued a sentence of life in prison without the opportunity for parole.

“Let’s go ahead and give him his last meal,” Flournoy said. “You can not pat the devil on the head and think he’s going to change.”

Marvin Helms said Smith fatally shot his sister seven times.

“I’m tired of coming here for the same thing,” Helms said. “He shot two men less times than he shot my sister. They don’t need to give him life. They need to go on and kill him. They need to take him down to sparky.”

According to the deathpenalty.org website, the primary method of execution is lethal injection in Alabama, although inmates convicted before 2002 can choose either electrocution or lethal injection.

In contrast, Bobby Bennett, the brother of David Lee Bennett, said he disagreed with the court’s sentence.

“I think it should’ve been life without parole. Maybe God can use this young man, even in prison,” Bennett said. “I just don’t believe in taking a man’s life. Who are we to judge?”

Bennett recalled his brother as a forgiving person.

“I still believe in chances even though my brother didn’t have any,” Bennett said. “God brings closure. God forgives, and so must we.”

Conaway heard arguments from Smith’s attorney, Aaron Gartlan, and Houston County District Attorney Doug Valeska before making his ruling.

Attorney David Hogg, who also represented Smith, said his client’s first two sentences were reversed. The death sentence was reversed because of comments made by some of the relatives of victims in the murders during the jury selection of the trial.

Valeska referred to Smith as someone who ran a drug trafficking enterprise. Valeska also said Smith has shown the court no remorse.

Smith turned down an opportunity to say anything before the court made its ruling.

“All he wanted was money for his drug enterprise,” Valeska said. “Jerry Jerome Smith is the worst of the worst. In the history of the city of Dothan no one has ever killed three people and tried to kill a fourth. We don’t call for vengeance, we call for justice.”

Gartlan asked the court to consider reports he turned in to the court indicating his client was mentally retarded.

“We were not allowed to develop that issue with the jury,” Gartlan said. “They were not allowed to consider the full picture.”

The state Supreme Court upheld the court’s ruling that Smith was not mentally retarded, which in the state of Alabama would have prevented him from facing the death penalty.

The Supreme Court’s opinion said Smith’s actions of “systematically” killing three people and attempting to kill a fourth after his gun jammed were not the actions of a mentally retarded individual.

Gartlan said the Supreme Court’s ruling did not limit him from presenting his client’s mental retardation as mitigating evidence.

Valeska told the Eagle earlier that it was a death penalty case because two or more people were killed at the same time, and that they were killed during a burglary.

TAMPA – Oscar Ray Bolin back in court

april 16, 2012 source : http://www.myfoxtampabay.com

 It has been 26 years since three young women were murdered in Tampa.

Investigators say Stephanie Collins, Teri Matthews and Natalie “Blanche” Holley were each confronted and attacked by Oscar Ray Bolin.

The former truck driver is now 50 years old, about the same age as two of his victims would have been.

But Bolin is back in a Hillsborough County courtroom, on trial for the 10th time in the murders of the three women.

A jury has convicted him nine times, but he’s been retried trhee times each in the Matthews and Collins cases.

He’s being retried now for the 4th time in the Holley case. The trials were previously overturned for a variety of reasons — basically, mistakes that were found in the trials.

Kim Seace, a former prosecutor and now a defense attorney in Tampa, says it is unusual.

“It’s unusual for it to be overturned that many times, but you have to remember when it’s a death penalty case, it’s held to a very high level of scrutiny at the appellate level. So they are going to scrutinize absolutely everything that took place,” Seace said.

During jury selection on Monday, out of a pool of 70 potential jurors, only 12 were dismissed for having prior knowledge of the case or of Bolin.

But because it was 26 years ago, most of the jurors have no recollection.

Bolin is currently serving two death sentences for Stephanie Collins and Teri Matthews, both of which have been upheld so far.

Kim Seace says the prosecutors may be going for a 3rd death sentence for a few different reasons.

“It’s something they would consult the victim’s family, and take their wishes into account. I think that would be a decision by each state attorney that is prosecuting him. And you don’t want to run the risk something is going to get overturned and you’re not going to have a death sentence in place on him,” Seace said.

Death Row Kids

January 2005
In the last five years, more juvenile offenders were killed in Texas than in the rest of the world combined. America continues to defend its right to execute children.

“They think we’re beasts. And we deserve nothing else other than our execution,” despairs Oswaldo. He’s been on death row since he was 17, after accidentally killing a man during an armed robbery. “In 12 years, I haven’t had a hug or a kiss.” In Louisiana, Lawrence Jacob Jr is also fighting for his life. Like Oswaldo, he was only 17 when he was sentenced to death. “I’m not asking you to release me. I’m only asking you for the chance to rehabilitate,” he reasons. Cerebral research proves that the brains of 17 year olds have not developed as much as adults. “Youths at that age are much too impulsive and don’t have the control,” explains one expert. But in America, that’s no bar to their execution.

State experiences vary with use of death penalty

april 14, 2012 source : http://www.joplinglobe.com

First among states for executions is Texas, which has put to death 481 prisoners since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

Oklahoma

Oklahoma ranks third with 98 executions, including two in 2011. Earlier this year, the state of Oklahoma executed Gary Roland Welch at the state penitentiary in McAlester for the 1994 slaying of Robert Dean Hardcastle in Miami, Okla.

Oklahoma’s attorney general’s office also is appealing a stay of execution issued for an inmate who was scheduled to die last week.

Garry Allen was set to die Thursday, but on Wednesday afternoon, federal Judge David Russell issued the stay, ruling that Allen’s claims that he is insane and ineligible for the death penalty should be reviewed.

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt’s office immediately filed its notice of appeal with the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In the appeal, the state argues that courts have found Allen sane and that he’s capable of understanding his execution is for the 1986 murder of Gail Titsworth.

Allen has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and his attorneys argue his mental state deteriorated on death row.

Missouri

Missouri has 47 people on death row and ranks fifth in the number of executions since 1976, with 68.

The most recent prisoner to be put to death in Missouri was Martin Link, who was executed on Feb. 9, 2011, for the 1991 kidnapping, rape and murder of 11-year-old Elissa Self-Braun, of St. Louis.

Chris Collings, of Wheaton, is the most recent Missourian sentenced to death row. On March 23, jurors agreed on capital punishment for his kidnapping, raping and slaying of 9-year-old Rowan Ford.

Others from Southwest Missouri on death row are Cecil Clayton, sentenced in December 1997 by a Jasper County jury for the 1996 first-degree murder of Barry County Deputy Christopher Castetter, and Mark Christeson, sentenced in September 1999 by a Vernon County jury for three counts of first-degree murder in the 1998 deaths of Susan Brouk and her two children.

Kansas

Kansas now has nine people on death row, including Gary Kleypas, who was sentenced to death for the killing of Carrie Williams in 1996 in Pittsburg.

The death penalty was first abolished in Kansas in 1907 by Gov. Edward Hoch. In 1935, the death penalty was reinstated, but no executions took place until 1944. The state had the death penalty statute in effect until a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court ruling struck it down.

After the 1976 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that reinstated the constitutionality of it, numerous attempts were made to reinstate the death penalty. Gov. John Carlin vetoed reinstatement legislation in 1979, 1980, 1981 and 1985.

The current death penalty statute was enacted in 1994 when Gov. Joan Finney allowed it to become law without her signature. In 2004, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled capital punishment unconstitutional, but it was reinstated after the U.S. Supreme Court decided the Kansas death penalty was constitutional.

In 2010, the Kansas Senate was one vote short of voting to replace the death penalty with life without the possibility of parole for the crime of aggravated murder.

ARIZONA – Death penalty upheld in Ariz. teen’s killing

april 13, 2012 source :http://www.trivalleycentral.com

The Arizona Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the conviction and death sentence of a man found guilty of fatally bludgeoning his 14-year-old niece whose semi-nude body was found while her mother was in the hospital.

Brad Lee Nelson of Golden Valley had appealed his sentence to the court, arguing that he didn’t have an impartial trial jury, that the killing wasn’t premeditated and that putting him to death would be cruel and unusual punishment.

The 41-year-old was convicted of first-degree murder in the June 2006 killing of 14-year-old Amber Graff.

Records show that Nelson was watching Graff and her 13-year-old brother Wade at a hotel in Kingman in western Arizona while their mother was in the hospital being treated for Crohn’s disease.

Prosecutors say that Nelson walked from the hotel to a Kmart, bought a rubber mallet, came back and hit Amber in the head with it multiple times as Wade slept.

Prosecutors say that after hitting her with the mallet, Nelson covered up her body and soon after spent the morning with Wade going to a couple of stores and hanging out by the pool. When they returned to the hotel room, Nelson told Amber to wake up and pulled the covers from her.

Her body was blue and naked from the waist down, her forehead was covered in blood, and blood and foam were coming out of her mouth. Semen later found on her groin area matched Nelson, although there was no evidence that Amber was raped.

The rubber mallet was found in a bloody black sock under the bed.

Amber’s stepfather later gave investigators a letter from Nelson to Amber that proclaimed his love for her and promised to never hurt her.

Defense attorneys had argued that Nelson didn’t mean to kill the girl while the prosecution argued that his trip to Kmart to buy the mallet and his efforts to cover up the crime proved it was premeditated murder.

Prosecutors also theorized at trial that Nelson came on to Amber and she denied him, provoking him enough to kill her.

“It was pretty clear it was sexually motivated,” Mohave County Attorney Matt Smith, who prosecuted the case against Nelson, said Thursday. “I don’t see anything accidental about any of it.”

In their ruling Thursday, the Arizona Supreme Court rejected multiple arguments from Nelson’s attorney that sought to have his death sentence overturned, including that the jury’s finding that Nelson was eligible for the death penalty because Amber was under the age of 15 is “arbitrary and capricious.”

Under Arizona law, a number of so-called aggravating factors make someone convicted of first-degree murder eligible to be executed, including that the murder victim is under the age of 15. Amber was two months away from turning 15 when she was killed.

Nelson’s attorney, David Goldberg, argued that the state doesn’t have a compelling or rational basis to execute someone who kills a child who is 14 years and 10 months old as opposed to someone who has turned 15.

The court ruled that the Arizona Legislature set the age at 15 after determining that the young are especially vulnerable, should be afforded more protection and that murders of the sort should carry more severe punishments.

S.D. Supreme Court denies Eric Robert’s request for quick execution in guard’s murder

april 12, 2012 source : http://www.argusleader.com

The South Dakota Supreme Court has denied a death row inmate’s request for a quick execution.

Eric Robert, 49, filed a motion to vacate with the court earlier this year after the justices stayed his May execution. The court issued the stay in order to complete the sentence review mandated by South Dakota law in all death penalty cases.

Robert was sentenced to die by lethal injection in October for the murder of corrections officer Ron “R.J.” Johnson, which took place one year ago today.

Robert’s lawyers argued that the Supreme Court did not have the authority to stay an execution where no appeal has been filed. The inmate has not appealed his sentence or asked for clemency from Gov. Dennis Daugaard.

The high court rejected the notion that it doesn’t have the statutory authority to stay a sentence. The justices ruled unanimously that a sentence review is required, and that a stay can be issued as a part of that process.

“While it is true that this proceeding was not initiated by Robert filing a notice of appeal, it is an exercise of this court’s appellate jurisdiction to review the decision of a lower court – a proceeding upon appeal,” Chief Justice David Gilbertson wrote.

Robert and another inmate, 49-year-old Rodney Berget, attacked Johnson from behind with a metal pipe at the South Dakota State Penitentiary’s prison industries building. Johnson, who was filling in for an ill co-worker on his 63rd birthday, was the lone officer on duty that morning.

After beating him to death, Robert put on Johnson’s uniform and Berget climbed into a box atop a wheeled cart.

The inmates were captured as Robert tried to wheel the cart through the prison’s west gate.

Both men have been sentenced to die for the murder.

A third inmate, 47-year-old Michael Nordman, was given a life sentence for his role in the crime. Nordman, who worked in the prison industries building, traded the plastic wrap and pipe for a prison knife.

A dedication ceremony is planned in Sioux Falls today for the prison’s staff training center, which will be renamed in Johnson’s honor.

Related articles

Ray’s Story – wrongfully convicted

Ray Krone was sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit. He has been proven innocent and exonerated, and now helps other “exonerees” share their stories of unjust sentences and close calls with state-sanctioned death penalties. Ray works for Witness to Innocence, which receives support from Atlantic, toward abolishing the death penalty throughout America. Atlantic is the largest funder of work to abolish the death penalty in the U.S.

For more info see: http://www.atlanticphilanthropies.org/rays-story-death-penalty-mistake

Anti-death penalty group asks Okla. governor to reconsider clemency for man scheduled to die

april, 2 2012,  source : http://www.therepublic.com

OKLAHOMA CITY — An anti-death penalty group wants Gov. Mary Fallin to grant clemency to a man sentenced to die next week, and asked Monday that she give full weight to the Pardon and Parole Board’s 2005 recommendation to commute his sentence.

The Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty encouraged the public Monday to write letters to the governor and sign the group’s petition. Coalition members argue that Garry Thomas Allen, 56, is mentally impaired and should not be put to death.

Allen killed the mother of his children, 42-year-old Lawanna Titsworth, on Nov. 21, 1986, in Oklahoma City. He was shot in the head during a struggle with an officer.

Fallin said she and her legal team gave Allen’s case a thorough review, including interviews with family members of the victim and attorneys on both sides, and she has no plans to change her decision.

“I took quite a long time looking through his files,” Fallin said. “I watched videos of him. I’ve read the files themselves. I’ve visited with his attorneys.”

Garland Pruitt, president of the Oklahoma City chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, supported the anti-death penalty coalition at a news conference Monday at the state Capitol. The Rev. Adam Leathers and Sen. Constance Johnson also backed the group.

Leathers said executing Allen with his history of mental illness conflicts with Jesus’ promotion of life and healing. He said Allen is not a Christ figure, but talking about state-mandated execution at the close of Lent is ironic and reminds him of “barbaric crowds” that “once cried out ‘crucify him.'”

A personality test in Allen’s court file shows his “probable diagnosis is Schizophrenic Disorder, or Anxiety Disorder in a Paranoid Personality.”

Allen, who had a history of substance abuse, testified that before the day of the killing, he got drunk whenever he could.

“I can remember drinking a lot and I don’t even know if it was on that day, but I was drinking just about every day at that point,” he said.

The Pardon and Parole Board recommended 4-1 that the governor commute Allen’s sentence to life in prison without parole. But Fallin rejected the recommendation last month and ordered him to die April 12.

In 2008, jurors rejected Allen’s argument that he should not be put to death and decided he was sane enough to be executed.

Allen appealed, but the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals in December concluded there is no procedure to appeal a finding that a person facing execution is sane.

Allen shot Titsworth four days after she moved out of the home where she lived with Allen and their two sons, according to court documents. Titsworth and Allen had fought in the week before the shooting and he tried to convince her to live with him again.

On the day of the killing, she went to a day care center to pick up her sons when Allen confronted her. She left with the boys and went into the parking lot, where employees and several children were, but Allen would not let her get into her truck. He reached into his sock and shot her twice in the chest with a revolver. She was able to run toward the day care, but Allen pushed her down some steps and shot her two times in the back.

An officer in the area responded to a 911 call and found Allen in an alley. Allen grabbed his gun and they struggled, according to court documents. Allen tried to make the officer shoot himself by squeezing his finger on the trigger, but the officer got control of the gun and shot Allen in the face.