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Post by leopard32 on Apr 24, 2010 8:10:02 GMT -6
This is just another load of typical anti nonsense. Possibly because Allen was the first black woman executed in modern times.
Here is my file on the case, taken from contemporary reports: Wanda Jean Allen
12/12/00
A woman sentenced to death for shooting her estranged lover will have a last chance at life Friday when a minister tries to convince the state's clemency panel to spare her from the execution gurney. Wanda Jean Allen, 41, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Jan. 11, 2001, for the murder of 29-year-old Gloria Jean Leathers. Barring clemency, Allen would become the first woman to be put to death in the state's history and also become the first African-American woman to be executed since the death penalty was reinstated in the United States in 1976. Prosecutors portray Allen as a violent woman who was always ready to settle her problems with a gun. Allen previously had shot another woman to death and served four years in prison for manslaughter. "She always had a gun readily available," said Susan Howard, chief of criminal appeals for the Oklahoma Attorney General's Office. "In situations where she became frustrated or irate, her first reaction was to get a gun and solve any problem." Gay rights groups rally The condemned woman is not without strong support to save her life -- much of it coming from gay rights groups across the United States. Both anti-death penalty and gay rights groups have started a campaign to gain Allen clemency, arguing that she was the victim of lesbian stereotyping and inadequate counsel, and that she possibly suffers from mental retardation and brain damage. They also say the neurological damage to Allen might have been caused when she was hit by a truck when she was 12 years old. "We shouldn't send people to death because they are poor, mentally handicapped black lesbians," said Eric Ferrero, spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union's Lesbian and Gay Rights Project. At least 14 anti-death penalty and gay rights groups have joined the clemency campaign for Allen. The gay rights groups point out that they were opposed the death penalty before becoming involved in the Allen case. They include the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the ACLU's Lesbian and Gay Rights Project and the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project. The groups were pulled together by the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Minster seeks clemency Allen's clemency petition will be heard by the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board at 1 p.m. Friday at the Lexington Correctional Center here. The board is expected to rule quickly whether to recommend clemency to Gov. Frank Keating. Anti-death penalty groups plan to gather outside the prison before the hearing. In an unusual move, Allen's lawyer, Steven Presson, has decided to allow a local minister, Dr. Robin Meyers, to present Allen's case to the parole board and ask for clemency on "ethical and moral grounds." Meyers, the minister at the Mayflower Congregational United Church of Christ here, said he would present a 25-minute sermon on "legal and spiritual matters" in an effort to ask the board to spare Allen's life. Presson did not return telephone calls for comment. But in a sermon at his church, Meyers said Presson told him that "weeping relatives, emotional expressions of remorse, pleas for forgiveness" and even claims of new evidence have not worked before the board. Howard said she would appear before the board, too, and push for the death sentence to be carried out in accordance with the law, not God. "She hasn't shown anything to require the board to commute her sentence," Howard said. "I'll tell them not to let the fact that she is a woman enter into their decision. This certainly shouldn't be a political football. The fact that she is a woman, black or a lesbian doesn't have anything to do with the facts of the case." Biased jury? Howard said this is a case of murder, and the jury found that Allen had killed before, was likely to kill again and had previously threatened Leathers with death. However, Ferrero and other gay rights groups are convinced that bias played some role in the death sentence. "I don't think anybody would argue that she should be set free and out walking the streets," Ferraro said. "I've not met anyone who believes that. We just don't think it is right to send someone to die, particularly if bias played a role in that process." Comments questioned Hector Vargas, state legislative lawyer for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said the comments made by prosecutors about Allen being the "man" in the relationship "played a role and should not have been there to begin with." But Allen's trial lawyer, Robert Carpenter, said he couldn't say whether the remarks swayed the jury in any way. Carpenter told APBnews.com that Allen having killed before -- and not necessarily her homosexuality -- probably did more to persuade the jury to come back with a death sentence. "Her past record; that's what got her," Carpenter said. Domestic dispute leads to murder Allen received the death sentence for the Dec. 1, 1988, shooting death of Leathers in front of a police station in Oklahoma City. Leathers died four days later. The two women had been arguing over a welfare check at a grocery store when police were called, court documents stated. Officers stood by at the couple's home as Leathers packed her belongings and left. Authorities said Allen and Leathers fought over some of the property Leathers was taking with her. Leathers' mother drove her to the police station, police stated, where she was planning to file a complaint that Allen had not allowed her to take some of her property. Allen had followed her to the police station and, after asking Leathers to return home, pulled a gun and shot her, prosecutors said. Allen was previously convicted of pulling a gun and shooting Detra Pettus to death on June 29, 1981, following an argument with the woman's boyfriend at a local motel. She served four years in prison for manslaughter. Howard said that in that shooting, Allen had claimed that she had accidentally shot the victim. However, the evidence showed that the shot was fired within inches of Pettu's body, showing intent to kill, Howard said. Self-defense claim Carpenter said that he took the murder case because he knew Allen's family. After Allen was arrested for the murder of Leathers, he agreed to represent Wanda Jean for $5,000, thinking it was a non-capital case. Carpenter said he was eventually paid $800. But, Carpenter said, when he learned that the Oklahoma County District Attorney's Office was seeking a death sentence, he tried to withdraw from the case, telling the court that he had no experience in capital cases and did not have the money and resources to hire investigators and mount a proper defense. The court refused to release him. Carpenter said the family did not have the money to hire investigators to build a possible "crime of passion" defense, which could have reduced the case to a simple manslaughter. "I based my case on the slim defense of self-defense, and it wasn't much of a defense," Carpenter said. Allen had claimed during the trial that Leathers had attacked her with a rake, but prosecutors refuted that argument. Carpenter said one of the most damaging pieces of evidence against Allen was a threatening card that she had sent to Leathers. On the card, Allen wrote she was "going to kill something" and that if Leathers tried to "leave ... you will understand this card more. Dig. For real, no joke."
15/12/00
Convicted murderer Wanda Jean Allen, the first black woman due to be executed in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, lost a last-ditch bid for clemency Friday. The Oklahoma Board of Pardons and Parole rejected Allen's clemency request by a vote of 3-1, Department of Corrections spokesman Jerry Massie said. Allen's lawyer said the decision virtually ensured that Allen would be executed by lethal injection on Jan. 11, despite arguments from her supporters that she is mentally retarded and received poor legal representation in her trial. "There are no traditional routes of appeal left," said attorney Steve Presson, who represents Allen on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). "We're looking at our options, but we don't want to give anybody false expectations," he said. Allen, 41, was convicted of the December 1988 murder of her live-in lover Gloria Leathers, 29, who was shot in the stomach in front of a police station in an Oklahoma City suburb after the two broke up. Allen said she fired in self-defense, but police said Leathers did not attack Allen. The ACLU petitioned the pardons board for clemency, arguing that her trial attorney and the jury were never told she had been declared clinically borderline retarded by the state because of childhood brain damage. The ACLU also said the trial judge refused to replace her lawyer, who sought to withdraw because he had no experience in death penalty cases, and that the case was marred by racial bias and stereotyping. "Oklahoma's health system failed when Wanda Jean Allen's serious mental problems went untreated. The state's criminal justice system failed when she was forced to receive inadequate representation, and when bias based on race, class and sexual orientation entered the courtroom," the ACLU's clemency letter said. Massie said the board meeting, held at a rural prison in eastern Oklahoma, was packed to capacity by a crowd of about 100 people, many carrying protest signs. Presson said Allen read a statement to the board expressing her sorrow to her own family and Leather's family, asking God for forgiveness and concluding with the plea: "Please let me live."
11/01/01 WANDA JEAN ALLEN, 41, was pronounced dead at 9:21 local time after receiving a lethal dose of drugs at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. Gov. Frank Keating, an ardent death penalty supporter, cleared the way for the execution by denying a late request for a 30-day stay. A federal appeals court and the U.S. Supreme Court also denied last-minute appeals. Keating met with the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Attorney General Drew Edmondson before making his decision. Jackson was among two dozen people arrested Wednesday for trespassing during a protest at a women’s prison. Allen’s request for a stay was based on the narrow issue of whether the state parole board knew enough about her education. Her attorneys have said she scored 69 on an IQ test she took in the 1970s, suggesting that she is retarded. Prosecutors argued at a recent clemency hearing that Allen had graduated from high school and received a medical assistant certificate from Rose State College. Allen, however, dropped out of high school at 16 and never finished course work in the medical program.
TWO SHOOTINGS In 1981, Allen fatally shot childhood friend Detra Pettus during an argument, and spent two years in prison. Seven years later, she killed her lover, Gloria Leathers, whom she met in prison. Leathers argued with Allen in a grocery store the day she died and was gunned down as she arrived at a police station to file a complaint. Allen recently said that she cared for Leathers and “loved her as a person.” Leathers’ mother, Ruby Wilson, has said she doesn’t hate Allen but hates what she did. “I will never forget it. I will always see it,” Wilson said after meeting with Allen. Before Thursday, 44 women had been executed in the United States since 1900. The last execution of a black woman came in 1954, when Ohio electrocuted Betty Jean Butler.
The Oklahoman Allen, 41, was pronounced dead at 9:21 p.m. at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. "Two families were victimized by Wanda Jean Allen," Attorney General Drew Edmondson told more than 50 reporters and photographers before the execution. "Our thoughts are with them. They have waited a dozen years for justice in this case." Allen's death marked the first execution of a woman in Oklahoma since statehood. She joined a murderer's row of 114 men electrocuted, hanged or poisoned by the state since 1915. "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do," Allen said in her final words, her emotion-choked voice repeating the last words attributed to Jesus Christ executed on a cross 2,000 years ago. "That's it. Thank you." Twenty-four relatives of murder victim Gloria Leathers and manslaughter victim Detra Pettus traveled to McAlester for the execution. Many of those relatives watched the execution from behind a tinted window. Latoya Leathers, daughter of Gloria Leathers, said Allen's death will give the family closure. The daughter criticized the Rev. Jesse Jackson for twice traveling to Oklahoma City and protesting on Allen's behalf. "We're the victims, not Wanda Jean ... and justice has been served," Latoya Leathers said after the execution. In the moments before the execution, a chaplain read aloud from the Bible. A playful Allen, wearing a gray inmate shirt with a white sheet covering most of her body, turned her head toward her attorneys and spiritual advisers. She then smiled and stuck out her tongue. David Presson, a member of Allen's legal team, flashed the "I Love You" sign at her. She replied, "Bet that." "It's wrong," the Rev. Robin Meyers, minister of the Mayflower Congregational Church, said after watching Allen's last breath. "It's wrong," agreed the Rev. Walter Little, pastor of the Redeemer Lutheran Church in Oklahoma City. "Sitting there and reading the Scripture and committing murder." Allen was condemned to die in the 1988 murder of her lesbian lover, Gloria Leathers, who was shot outside The Village police station. "Our loved one wasn't given a choice about life," Leathers' family said in a written statement Thursday night. "She didn't even have a chance to look Wanda in the face to ask her to spare her life." At the time of Leathers' murder, Allen was on probation for the 1981 manslaughter of Detra Pettus. Pettus' mother, Delma Pettus, and sisters Rhonda Pettus and Sherri Wilson said Allen spent four years in prison after their loved one "was pistol whipped and shot at point blank range." "The short prison stays are a part of the reason crimes are repeated," the Pettus family said in a written statement. "It has taken 20 years and a second murder in order to get the death penalty." Allen was the sixth woman executed in the United States since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. She was the first black woman executed since Ohio electrocuted Betty Jean Butler in 1954. Allen was the second of eight Oklahoma inmates scheduled to die by lethal injection in a four- week period. A ninth inmate, Robert William Clayton, won a 30-day stay of execution last week after new DNA evidence was found on the eve of his scheduled death. Allen's case drew national attention as Jackson, the civil rights leader and former presidential candidate, accused Oklahoma of becoming a "killing machine." Questions were raised about Allen's mental competency, as Jackson made two trips to Oklahoma to rally on her behalf and call for a moratorium on the death penalty in Oklahoma. Defense attorneys claimed Allen was borderline mentally retarded and had an IQ measured at 69 in the 1970s. Prosecutors, however, said she was a fully functioning adult who held a job, managed her finances and knew right from wrong. "Wanda Jean Allen is not mentally retarded," Edmondson said, noting that a psychologist placed her IQ at 80 in the mid- 1990s. "Her IQ is 10 points above borderline mental retardation." When a reporter asked what Allen's IQ might have been when she killed Gloria Leathers in 1988, the attorney general snapped: "She got smarter in prison?" Allen's last chance for life was erased about 7 p.m. Thursday when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene. About 4 p.m. Thursday, in a decision Allen's attorneys immediately appealed to the high court, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. "Ms. Allen has failed to substantiate her allegation of a due process violation," the Denver judges concluded 3-0, referring to her claim that an assistant attorney general used false evidence against her at her unsuccessful Dec. 15 clemency hearing. Forty-five minutes after the 10th Circuit's decision, Keating denied a stay of execution. Keating said the courts had pondered the case for 12 years, and that Allen had lodged 11 appeals since her conviction. "This is not easy because I am dealing with a fellow human being ... with a fellow Oklahoman," Keating said. "I have to think about the woman she murdered in cold blood. I grieve for the families; I grieve for the dead. If a person takes another's life premeditated, they take their own." By state law, the governor could not stop the execution, but he could have granted a 30- day stay and had the state Pardon and Parole Board re- examine the issues. Keating said his only question was whether the parole board, which voted 3-1 to deny clemency, had sufficient information to make its decision. Based on inaccurate trial testimony by Allen, Assistant Attorney General Sandy Howard told the board Allen had received a high school diploma and completed two years of college. But Allen dropped out of high school. Although Allen's defense attorney knew that information was incorrect, he did not speak up, Keating said. Jackson met with Keating for nearly 50 minutes Thursday morning after the civil rights leader spent the night in the Oklahoma County jail. Jackson and 27 others were arrested Wednesday night when they trespassed across a line set up in front of the Mabel Bassett Correctional Center in Oklahoma City. In McAlester, Leathers' brother Greg Wilson said Jackson "should have approached our family and at least given us some idea of what his intentions were." "It seems like everyone only had one side of the story," Wilson said. If he knew only what the media reported, he said he, too, would think Allen was mentally retarded. But he said he knew her and that was not the case. "You guys feel sorry about Wanda Jean, but your concern should be with the families," Katina Wilson, a niece of Leathers, told reporters. "We are the victims."
Wanda Jean Allen's victim and one-time lover, Gloria Jean Leathers, died four days after being shot at close range in 1988 by Allen in front of the Village Police Station in Oklahoma City. Allen said she and Leathers were both out of control. Leathers had called her mother to pick her up from the house where she and Allen lived. After packing her belongings, Leathers and her mother went to the police station to file a compliant against Allen. Allen followed Leathers and shot her. Leathers' mother, Ruby Wilson of Edmond, witnessed the killing. On Oct. 13, Ruby Wilson met with her daughter's killer. "I wanted to tell her how sorry I was for taking her daughter's life. And I know there is no greater love than a mother's love for a child because I have a mother as well. And I asked for her forgiveness. She forgave me. We prayed together. And I let her know I loved her for coming that day." Leathers and Allen met in prison. Allen was serving a 4-year sentence for manslaughter. On June 29, 1981, at a motel in Oklahoma City, Allen shot to death Detra Pettus following an argument with Pettus' boyfriend. "We was friends," Allen said of Pettus. "We grew up together. We lived in the same neighborhood. We had mutual friends." While some prosecutors say that Allen and Leathers had a relationship in prison, Allen said that was not the case. Allen was released from prison before Leathers. When Leathers got out, she called Allen. "She didn't have a place to stay," Allen said. "She and her family were having problems. I allowed her to come and live with me because I know how hard it is when you get out. "By me being locked up, I understood that situation. You have to help people when they get out. Someone had helped me when I got out, so in turn I wanted to help someone as well." The pair lived together on and off for three years. She described Leathers as funny and witty. "It was the wrong type of lifestyle," she said of the lesbian relationship. "It didn't make either of us less human than if we were in a heterosexual relationship, a bisexual relationship. We are still human. We have emotions. We laugh. We cry. It was part of our life." At her trial, Oklahoma County prosecutors painted Allen as a person who hunted down her victims. Prosecutors introduced a card Allen had given Leathers. The card had a gorilla on it. The printed message said, "Patience my ass. I am going to kill something." Inside, Allen had written, "Try and leave me and you will understand this card more. Dig. For real, no joke." Leathers was portrayed as meek and timid. Allen said her attorney was not given a fair shot at defending her and was limited in what he could present. In 1979, Leathers was arrested in Tulsa for the stabbing death of Sheila Marie Barker, whom she killed outside a Tulsa disco. A judge later determined the slaying was self-defense. Ruby Wilson of Edmond can recall her daughter's murder as if it were just yesterday. The 57-year-old was an eyewitness in 1988 when Wanda Jean Allen shot Gloria Jean Leathers during a confrontation in front of the Village Police Station, where Wilson and her daughter had gone to file a report against Allen. Wilson said they had just pulled up to the station after leaving the house where Allen and Leathers had lived on and off for three years. Wilson said Leathers was moving out. Leathers was exiting the car when Allen, who had followed them, walked up with her hands underneath a sweatshirt. After exchanging words with Allen, Leathers was leaning into the car to pick up her purse when Allen "stuck it to my baby's ribs . . . she stuck it to her stomach and shot her. It sounded like a cap gun." Leathers slumped into the car. Four days later, she died following surgery, Wilson said. "I don't have any grudges against her," Wilson said. "I don't hate her, but I hate what she did. I hope she found peace with Christ about it. It does hurt. I will never forget it. I will always see it. That is in the past. I have to go on toward the future." Wilson on Oct. 13 met with Allen, who asked for forgiveness. "Being bitter won't solve anything," Wilson said. "It won't help me. It can't bring my baby back." Leathers left behind three children, whom Wilson has raised. "Her children have suffered," Wilson said. "I am too forgiving. They are not." Robert Ferguson Jr., Leathers' brother, is also not forgiving Allen. Ferguson said it is the second time that Allen has shot and killed someone. Allen served part of a four-year sentence for manslaughter stemming from the June 29, 1981, killing of Detra Pettus. "Second of all, she did it in front of my mother in front of a police station," said Ferguson, who lives in Jefferson City, Mo., and is a supervisor for the U.S. Postal Service. "So, I don't feel sorry for her, you know." Ferguson plans to witness Allen's execution, which is set for shortly after 9 p.m. Jan. 11 at Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. "If I could say anything to her, I don't know," Ferguson said. "I would say I am sorry this had to happen, but you brought it on yourself." Mary Ann Leathers, 39, who lives in Tulsa and is a day-care provider, also plans to witness the execution. She describes her sister as sweet, friendly and a person who would "give you anything. Sometimes you didn't have to ask for it." Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson said "I have my own personal opinion about the death penalty. I don't think it should ever be treated lightly. I am no more troubled by her case than I am any other case that we handle." Twenty-four relatives of murder victim Gloria Leathers and manslaughter victim Detra Pettus traveled to McAlester for the execution. Many of those relatives watched the execution from behind a tinted window. Detra Pettus' mother, Delma Pettus, and sisters, Rhonda Pettus and Sherri Wilson said Allen spent four years in prison after their loved one "was pistol whipped and shot at point-blank range. The short prison stays are a part of the reason crimes are repeated," the Pettus' statement read. "It has taken 20 years and a second murder in order to get the death penalty." Allen's last chance for life was erased about 7:30 p.m. Thursday when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene in her case. A few hours earlier, the same appeal was rejected by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. "Ms. Allen has failed to substantiate her allegation of a due process violation," the Denver judges concluded 3-0, referring to her claim that an assistant attorney general used false evidence against her at her unsuccessful Dec. 15 clemency hearing. Forty-five minutes after the 10th Circuit's decision, Keating denied a stay of execution. Keating said the courts had pondered the case for 12 years, and that Allen had lodged 11 different appeals since her conviction. "This is not easy because I am dealing with a fellow human being ... with a fellow Oklahoman," the governor said. "I have debated and discussed this, and now have resolved to deny the extension of 30 days. I care very deeply for the victims of crime. I have no use for killers, but I have a deep and abiding faith in the rule of law. I have to think about the woman she murdered in cold blood. I grieve for the families; I grieve for the dead. If a person takes another's life premeditated, they take their own."
Wanda Jean Allen, executed on 11 January, became the first African-American woman to be put to death in the USA since 1954. She had been sentenced to death in 1989 for shooting her lover, Gloria Leathers, in Oklahoma City in 1988. She claimed she had acted in self-defence. In a 1991 affidavit, the lawyer who had represented Allen at trial in his first capital case, stated that only after the trial had he learned that when Allen was 15 years old, her IQ had been measured at 69, and that the doctor who examined her had recommended a neurological assessment because she manifested symptoms of brain damage. The lawyer stated: ''I did not search for any medical or psychological records or seek expert assistance'' for use at the trial.
A psychologist conducted a comprehensive evaluation of Wanda Jean Allen in 1995 and found ''clear and convincing evidence of cognitive and sensory-motor deficits and brain dysfunction'' possibly linked to an adolescent head injury. At the age of 12, Allen had been hit by a truck and knocked unconscious, and at 14 or 15 she had been stabbed in the left temple. He found that Allen's ''intellectual abilities are markedly impaired''. He found ''particularly significant left hemisphere dysfunction'', impairing her ''comprehension, her ability to logically express herself, her ability to analyse cause and effect relationships...'' He also concluded that Allen was ''more chronically vulnerable than others to becoming disorganized by everyday stresses - and thus more vulnerable to a loss of control under stress''. END
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