The Rev. Jesse Jackson called Thursday for a moratorium on the death penalty in Oklahoma, saying the state is "running dangerously close to being No. 1 in football and No. 1 in executions per capita." At least 200 death penalty opponents joined Jackson in Oklahoma City for a march from near the Mabel Bassett Correctional Center, 3300 N Martin Luther King Ave., to the Fairview Baptist Church, 1700 NE 7. Before the march, Jackson and Fairview pastor J.A. Reed Jr. visited death row inmate Wanda Jean Allen and prayed with her. "She was in a great spirit," Jackson said of the condemned killer. "We prayed with her, then she asked us to let her pray for us." Allen, 41, is scheduled to die by lethal injection just after 9 p.m. Thursday at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. She would be the 1st woman executed in Oklahoma since statehood, and the 1st black woman executed in the United States since Ohio electrocuted Betty Jean Butler in 1954. Victim rights groups criticized the visit by the civil rights leader and former Democratic presidential candidate. "What in the world does this outsider, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, know or care about the final outcome of this issue in Oklahoma?" asked Judy Busch with the Oklahoma Coalition for Crime Victim Rights. "Do you think he knows the details of the heinous murders committed, or could it possibly be the attraction of the bright lights of the cameras?" Busch said. Her 7-year-old granddaughter's killer, Floyd Medlock, is 1 of 8 Oklahoma inmates facing execution in the next 4 weeks. A 9th inmate, Robert William Clayton, won a 30-day stay of execution Wednesday, barely 24 hours before his scheduled death for a murder 15 years ago. Jackson endorsed House Bill 1013 by state Rep. Opio Toure, D-Oklahoma City. The bill would halt executions in Oklahoma while the state re- examines the death penalty, Toure said. Toure, a former public defender, served as the trial attorney for Eddie Trice and Billy Fox, 2 of the inmates facing execution this month. At the same time, Toure's father and brother were murder victims, so he can identify with victims, he said. Clayton's case illustrates the need for a moratorium, Jackson and Toure said. "I would actually be frightened if we ever went back and examined the people who have been executed and used DNA in those cases," Toure said.  However, the victim rights coalition issued a statement calling the proposed moratorium an "outrageous attempt to overturn the will of the majority of the people." Such a moratorium would place public safety at risk, the group said.  "Each death row inmate has had their case reviewed a minimum of 9 times by numerous courts and judges," said Ron McDaniel, a Homicide Survivors Support Group member. "The sentence was upheld allowing the punishment to be carried out. That is the very least owed to the victims and their families, loved ones and friends." Lt. Gov. Mary Fallin issued Clayton's stay, acting in place of Gov. Frank Keating, who was in Miami, Fla., for the Orange Bowl.  "I guess that will teach Frank to not get her Orange Bowl tickets," joked Joann Bell, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma. Clayton's attorney, Jim Hankins, praised Fallin's action. "I don't know how this evidence was found or exactly where it was," Hankins said. "It is disturbing to me that Mr. Clayton specifically has been getting the run-around from the state since 1996 on the whereabouts of the evidence. "Someone with some courage ... uncovered it the day before the execution." Clayton is confident the evidence will clear him, his attorney said.  But Attorney General Drew Edmondson said he believes the evidence -- including a bloody sock and a knife -- only will add to Clayton's guilt. "The evidence against Mr. Clayton was compelling and included confessions he made both to law enforcement personnel and his own friend," Edmondson said. Meanwhile, Jackson questioned Allen's mental competency, saying her IQ was measured at one time at 69, which is borderline mentally retarded. He also argued that Allen's trial attorney, who was paid $800 to defend her, was not qualified and begged to be removed from the case.  Allen was sentenced to die in the 1988 murder of her lesbian lover, Gloria Leathers, who was shot outside The Village police station. In Denver on Thursday, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to stop Allen's execution. The judges denied her attorneys' request for an emergency consideration of her case. The same 3 judges who ruled against Allen a year ago issued Thursday's decision. They said federal law bars her from raising the same issue, alleged ineffective assistance of counsel, a 2nd time because she has not shown a "miscarriage of justice."

(source: The Oklahoman)