An Oklahoma judge granted a temporary stay of execution Monday to a man whose transfer to death row was expedited by the Trump administration and who was scheduled to receive a lethal injection on Thursday.
John Fitzgerald Hanson, 61, is set to die for killing a Tulsa woman in 1999. But Hanson’s lawyers have argued that he did not receive a fair clemency hearing last month before the state’s five-member Pardon and Parole Board. They claim one of the members of the board, Sean Malloy, was biased because he worked for the Tulsa County District Attorney’s Office at the same time Hanson was being prosecuted.
Malloy has said he was unfamiliar with Hanson’s case and was among the three members who voted to deny Hanson clemency.
Attorney General Gentner Drummond argued that the district judge doesn’t have the authority to stay the execution and has asked the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to vacate it.
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