| Updated: 4/11/2012 5:25 pm |
Published: 4/11/2012 4:17 pm
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OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - A federal judge in Oklahoma City has stayed the execution of an inmate who was diagnosed with schizophrenia but found sane by a jury that considered whether he was eligible for the death penalty.
Fifty-six-year-old Garry Allen is scheduled to die by injection on Thursday. Allen pleaded guilty to capital murder after being shot in the head during his November 1986 arrest. He killed 24-year-old Gail Titsworth, with whom he had children, outside a daycare where she had picked up her sons days after she moved away from Allen. An officer shot Allen after he tried to shoot the officer.
In 2005, the state Pardon and Parole Board voted 4-1 to commute Allen's sentence to life in prison, but Gov. Mary Fallin had decided to allow the execution to proceed.
Attorney General Scott Pruitt’s Criminal Appeals Unit is planning to appeal a stay of execution order issued Wednesday by an Oklahoma federal court. The order stays the execution of killer Garry Thomas Allen.
The state will appeal the stay to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The federal court’s order came a day after Allen’s request for a stay of execution and petition for writ of mandamus were denied by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, Allen’s last step in the state appeals process.
Allen’s execution was scheduled for Thursday.
(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
