OKLAHOMA CITY — An Oklahoma judge has stayed the execution of a man whose death by lethal injection was expedited under the Trump administration, according to an article by Sean Murphy published June 9, 2025, by ABC News.
John Fitzgerald Hanson, 61, was scheduled to be executed Thursday for the 1999 killing of Tulsa woman Mary Bowles.
Hanson’s attorneys argued he was denied a fair clemency hearing last month before the state’s five-member Pardon and Parole Board. They claim board member Sean Malloy was biased, as he had worked for the Tulsa County District Attorney’s Office during Hanson’s prosecution.
Malloy, however, told ABC News he was unfamiliar with Hanson’s case at the time and did not work on it. He was one of three members who voted 3-2 to deny Hanson a clemency recommendation.
In the clemency petition, Hanson’s attorney, Emma Rolls, wrote that her client is a condemned man who “possesses a clear and grave interest in the right to due process and the equitable administration of Oklahoma’s constitutional process for executive clemency.”
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond argued the district judge lacked the authority to stay the execution and asked the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to vacate the order, according to ABC News.
Hanson was convicted in Tulsa County of carjacking, kidnapping, and killing Bowles after abducting her from a shopping mall with an accomplice. He was sentenced to death for the crime.
ABC News also reported that Hanson had been serving a life sentence in Louisiana for multiple federal convictions, including for being a career criminal, prior to his transfer to Oklahoma custody in March. The transfer was authorized by federal officials following a sweeping executive order under former President Donald Trump supporting the expanded use of the death penalty.
Both Drummond and former Attorney General John O’Connor had previously sought Hanson’s transfer during the Biden administration, but the U.S. Bureau of Prisons declined, stating it was not in the public interest.
