�
Oklahoma
Prepares to Execute First Woman Since 1903
Wanda
Jean Allen is scheduled to become the first woman executed in
Oklahoma since statehood on January 11, 2001. Oklahoma City NAACP
president Roosevelt Milton and others are urging the state Pardon
and Parole Board to recommend that Governor Keating commute Allen's
sentence to life without parole, saying her case illustrates the
injustices of the death penalty. Allen's trial attorney, who had no
previous experience with capital cases, tried the case with no
co-counsel, no investigator, and no resources to hire expert
witnesses. The trial court denied his offer to act as co-counsel
for free if an experienced public defender was appointed as lead
counsel. Mitigating evidence, such as Allen's low IQ and her
psychological state and brain trauma from previous injuries, were
not raised at trial. (�) The Daily Oklahoman, 12/12/00
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Oklahoma Death Row
Woman Loses Clemency Bid
By
Ben Fenwick
OKLAHOMA
CITY (Reuters) - Convicted murderer Wanda Jean Allen, the first
black woman due to be executed in the United States since the death
penalty was reinstated in 1976, lost a last-ditch bid for clemency
on Friday.
The
Oklahoma Board of Pardons and Parole rejected Allen's clemency
request by a vote of 3-1, Department of Corrections spokesman Jerry
Massie said.
Allen's
lawyer said the decision virtually ensured that Allen would be
executed by lethal injection on Jan. 11, despite arguments from her
supporters that she is mentally retarded and received poor legal
representation in her trial.
``There
are no traditional routes of appeal left,'' said attorney Steve
Presson, who represents Allen on behalf of the American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU).
``We're
looking at our options, but we don't want to give anybody false
expectations,'' he said. Allen, 41 was convicted of the December
1988 murder of her live-in lover Gloria Leathers, 29, who was shot
in the stomach in front of a police station in an Oklahoma City
suburb after the two broke up.
Allen
said she fired in self-defense, but police said Leathers did not
attack Allen. The ACLU petitioned the pardons board for clemency,
arguing that her trial attorney and the jury were never told she
had been declared clinically borderline retarded by the state
because of childhood brain damage.
The
ACLU also said the trial judge refused to replace her lawyer, who
sought to withdraw because he had no experience in death penalty
cases, and that the case was marred by racial bias and stereotyping.
``Oklahoma's
health system failed when Wanda Jean Allen's serious mental
problems went untreated. The state's criminal justice system failed
when she was forced to receive inadequate representation, and when
bias based on race, class and sexual orientation entered the
courtroom,'' the ACLU's clemency letter said. Massie said the board
meeting, held at a rural prison in eastern Oklahoma, was packed to
capacity by a crowd of about 100 people, many carrying protest
signs. Presson said Allen read a statement to the board expressing
her sorrow to her own family and Leather's family, asking God for
forgiveness and concluding with the plea: ``Please let me live.''
Five women have been executed in the United States since the death
penalty was reinstated in 1976 by a Supreme Court decision, none of
them in Oklahoma. Allen would be the first black woman to die for a
capital conviction, according to the independent Death Penalty
Information Center in Washington D.C.
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