Oklahoma parole board rejects clemency for death row inmate

3 years ago 475

(AP) — Oklahoma’s Pardon and Parole Board narrowly rejected clemency Tuesday for a decease enactment inmate convicted of sidesplitting a situation cafeteria idiosyncratic successful 1998, paving the mode for the state’s archetypal execution successful much than six years.

The five-member committee voted 3-2 to cull recommending the politician assistance clemency to John Marion Grant, 60, who is scheduled for lethal injection connected Oct. 28. It would beryllium the archetypal execution successful Oklahoma since a series of problematic lethal injections successful 2014 and 2015 led to a de facto moratorium.

Grant was convicted of execution and sentenced to decease for sidesplitting 58-year-old Gay Carter astatine the Dick Conner Correctional Center successful Hominy. A antithetic five-member parole committee unanimously rejected clemency for Grant successful 2014.

Grant’s attorneys did not quality that helium dragged Carter into a mop closet and stabbed her 16 times with a homemade shank, but said helium received ineffective proceedings counsel due to the fact that his lawyers ne'er decently presented mitigating grounds to the jury, specified arsenic his hard childhood.

“We are asking the committee contiguous to travel with unfastened minds and unfastened hearts to perceive the full communicative that should person been presented astatine trial,” said Grant’s attorney, Sarah Jernigan. “We inquire for mercy. We inquire for clemency. And we inquire that you perceive astir his beingness and the circumstances that led to this crime.”

Jernigan said Grant was 1 of 9 children who grew up without a begetter successful abject poverty, including a location with a ungraded level and nary moving water. He ended up successful a juvenile detention installation astatine property 12 during the 1970s erstwhile Oklahoma’s juvenile justness strategy was among the worst successful the country, she added.

Grant served aggregate stints successful situation and jails, and was serving clip for equipped robbery erstwhile helium killed Carter. Jernigan besides told committee members that Grant is successful mediocre wellness and is nary longer a convulsive person.

Grant himself opted not to code the committee from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, a determination Jernigan attributed to the accent and unit involved.

“I deliberation helium doesn’t privation to enactment himself successful a presumption wherever helium has to revisit the trauma of his past,” she said, adding that helium is remorseful for the killing.

Attorneys for the state, however, argued that Grant’s condemnation has been reviewed by galore courts and that helium continued to beryllium a menace to different inmates and unit successful the years since Carter’s killing. Former Assistant Attorney General Joshua Lockett said Grant assaulted different inmate connected decease enactment successful 2005 successful an onslaught that required stitches, and helium threatened situation workers successful 2008 and 2009.

“This idiosyncratic has not changed. He’s inactive the same,” Lockett said. “Because of that, we would inquire you to contradict clemency.”

The committee besides heard a tearful plea from Carter’s daughter, Pam Carter, who urged the sheet to cull clemency.

“I bash judge the condemnation is just,” said Carter, who besides worked astatine the situation and was determination the time her parent was killed. “He did termination her, and it had to beryllium planned due to the fact that you can’t conscionable spell and find a shank. He had clip to calm down and not transportation retired what helium was going to do.”

After the board’s vote, Jernigan said successful a statement: “Allowing Mr. Grant to beryllium executed is simply a last injustice successful this tragic case.”

Board members Adam Luck and Kelly Doyle, some appointees of Gov. Kevin Stitt, voted to urge clemency. Members Larry Morris, Scott Williams and Richard Smothermon voted against it.

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