The Oklahoma Department of Corrections was preparing Wednesday to carry out the state's 11th execution since lethal injections resumed two years ago.
Phillip Dean Hancock was set to be executed Thursday morning for fatally shooting two men in Oklahoma City in 2001.
The execution was set for 10 a.m. at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester unless Gov. Kevin Stitt intervened.
The governor could commute Hancock's sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. No decision had been announced as of 11:30 p.m. Wednesday.
Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board recommended clemency for Phillip Dean Hancock
The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted 3-2 on Nov. 8 to recommend clemency after Hancock again insisted he acted in self-defense.
"I was in a life-or-death situation," Hancock, 59, told the board via a video link from prison. "They forced me to fight for my life."
The board has recommended clemency only three other times since executions resumed in 2021. The governor has granted clemency only once, to Julius Jones.
That decision was announced at noon on Nov. 17, 2021. The execution had been set to begin at 4 p.m.
The governor in 2021 denied clemency to death row inmate Bigler Jobe "Bud" Stouffer II a week before the execution. Last year, he denied death row inmate James Coddington clemency the day before execution.
Death penalty opponents have not rallied behind Hancock as much as they have behind those death row inmates who claim they didn't kill anyone. His attorneys also did not seek any last-minute stays from the U.S. Supreme Court.
At his clemency hearing, Hancock admitted again that he fatally shot Robert Lee Jett Jr. at the biker's home in Oklahoma City early April 27, 2001, after being told to get into a cage.
He also admitted he fatally shot James Vincent "J.V." Lynch.
He told the parole board Jett, 38, was bludgeoning him with a metal tool while Lynch, 57, held him down in an armbar chokehold. He said he shot the men after getting control of Jett's pistol.
"Please understand the awful situation I found myself in," he said.
An Oklahoma County jury rejected his self-defense claim in 2004, found him guilty of first-degree murder and chose death as punishment.
Afterward, the trial judge wrote in a report that Hancock attacked both victims without provocation and at no time expressed any remorse.
Source:
oklahoman.com, Nolan Clay, November 29, 2023
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