Oklahoma prepares to execute a person transferred from federal custody by Trump officers

McALESTER, Okla. — Oklahoma ready to execute a person Thursday whose switch to state custody was expedited by the Trump administration.

John Fitzgerald Hanson, 61, is ready to obtain a deadly injection on the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. Hanson was sentenced to die after he was convicted of carjacking, kidnapping and killing a Tulsa lady in 1999.

Hanson, whose title in some federal courtroom information is George John Hanson, had been serving a life sentence in federal jail in Louisiana for a number of unrelated federal convictions. Federal officers transferred him to Oklahoma custody in March to observe by way of on President Donald Trump’s sweeping govt order to extra actively help the dying penalty.

Hanson’s attorneys argued in a last-minute attraction that he didn’t obtain a good clemency listening to final month, claiming that one of many board members who denied him clemency was biased as a result of he labored for the Tulsa County District Lawyer’s Workplace when Hanson was prosecuted. A district courtroom choose this week non permanent halted the execution, however an appeals courtroom later cleared the best way for it.

The U.S. Supreme Court docket late Wednesday rejected a separate attraction that alleged a key witness testified in opposition to Hanson in change for favorable remedy from prosecutors in a felony case, data that was by no means disclosed to his protection workforce.

Prosecutors allege Hanson and confederate, Victor Miller, kidnapped Mary Bowles from a Tulsa shopping center. Prosecutors allege the pair drove Bowles to a gravel pit close to Owasso, the place Miller shot and killed property proprietor Jerald Thurman. The 2 then drove Bowles a brief distance away, the place Hanson shot and killed Bowles, in accordance with prosecutors. Miller acquired a no-parole life jail sentence for his function within the crimes.

Throughout final month’s clemency listening to, Hanson expressed regret for his involvement within the crimes and apologized to the victims’ households.

“I’m not an evil individual,” Hanson stated by way of a video hyperlink from the jail. “I used to be caught in a scenario I couldn’t management. I can’t change the previous, however I might if I may.”

Hanson’s attorneys acknowledged he participated within the kidnapping and carjacking, however stated there was no definitive proof that he shot and killed Bowles. They painted Hanson as a troubled youth with autism and who was managed and manipulated by the domineering Miller.