Oklahoma | Governor Stitt denies clemency to death row inmate Bigler Jobe 'Bud' Stouffer II

Death row inmate Bigler Jobe "Bud" Stouffer II was denied clemency Friday.

Gov. Kevin Stitt rejected a recommendation that his sentence be commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

"I have thoroughly reviewed the arguments and evidence presented in this case and have determined that clemency should be denied," the governor stated in an executive order.

Stouffer, 79, will become the second inmate executed in Oklahoma in more than six years unless he gets a stay in court.

The execution is set to begin at 10 a.m. Thursday at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.

Stouffer is facing execution for the fatal shooting of Putnam City elementary school teacher Linda Reaves on Jan. 24, 1985.

He claims he is innocent. His son on Wednesday delivered a petition to the governor's office asking Stitt to grant clemency.

Supporters said the petition had been signed nearly 10,000 times.

Stouffer was convicted at his first trial and a retrial of murdering Reaves. He also was convicted at both trials of shooting homebuilder Doug Ivens with intent to kill.

Reaves was dating Ivens, who was in the middle of a divorce. Stouffer was dating Ivens' estranged wife.

Prosecutors alleged the motive for the shooting was a $2 million life insurance policy and that he staged the crime scene to make it look like a murder-suicide.

His plan fell through because Ivens survived.

Ivens crawled to the phone after Stouffer shot him one final time, in the face, at his Oklahoma City home, according to evidence in the case. Stouffer planted the gun in Reaves' hand before leaving.

He later told his girlfriend in a phone call that he was afraid she would go back to her husband and that he just went berserk, according to testimony.

"I said, 'I just can't believe this. ... I can't believe you could do something like this. You can't be the Bud I know,'" she told police.

"And he said, 'There are two Buds.'"

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board recommended clemency 3-2 last month after voicing concerns about an execution Oct. 28.

Media witnesses reported inmate John Marion Grant threw up and convulsed repeatedly after the first of three drugs was administered.

Stouffer had asked an Oklahoma City federal judge to delay his execution after filing a legal challenge to the lethal injection procedure.

U.S. District Judge Stephen Friot refused. Stouffer then asked the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to intervene.

Stouffer was not a party to a 2014 legal challenge brought by inmates on Oklahoma's death row to the execution process. A trial in that case is set to begin Feb. 28 in Oklahoma City federal court.

Death penalty opponent Abraham Bonowitz suggested the governor denied clemency for political reasons after being described in TV ads as soft on crime.

"After all, it is election season, and a significant subset of his base don't see the death penalty for what it is, which is 'big government' run amok," the director of Death Penalty Action said.

Another opponent said the death penalty is flawed, expensive and no longer needed to exact punishment in Oklahoma.

"To execute a man, even a guilty one, who is 79 years old, is unnecessary and unreasonable," said Paul S. Coakley, archbishop of Oklahoma City.

Source: oklahoman.com, Nolan Clay, December 3, 2021

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