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Thread: Anthony Castillo Sanchez - Oklahoma Execution - September 21, 2023

  1. #21
    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    It won’t matter to the antis though. Even though his guilt is proven they will still say he was framed, like they do with Julius Jones, Rodney Reed, Sedley Alley and scores of others.
    Thank you for the adventure - Axol

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  2. #22
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Oklahoma AG's office asks appeals court to deny death row inmate's hearing

    By Derrick James
    The McAlester News-Capital

    Attorneys for the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office asked the state’s appeals court to deny a death row inmate's request for an evidentiary hearing, claiming DNA proves he committed a 1996 murder.

    Anthony Sanchez was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of 21-year-old Jewel Jean “Juli” Busken. Court documents state Busken, of Benton, Arkansas, was a ballerina and recently finished her last semester at OU when she was abducted from her Norman apartment on Dec. 20, 1996.

    Busken’s body was found at Lake Stanley Draper in Norman with a single gunshot wound to the back of the head and she had been raped. DNA evidence was obtained from clothing found on Busken and at the location her body was found.

    Attorney for Sanchez filed in February an application for post-conviction relief with the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, claiming DNA proves Sanchez’s innocence and that it was his father that committed the murder.

    The Attorney General’s Office said that new DNA testing confirms his father did not commit the murder.

    “The testing further determined that there is a 99.9% probability that petitioner’s father is the father of the individual whose sperm was on Juli Basken’s leotard,” the AG’s office wrote in response.

    According to the motion, a blood sample from Sanchez’s father was obtained from the medical examiner’s office following his April 2022 death.

    The motion also claims Sanchez’s father confessed to the murder in 2020 to a woman who was too scared “to discuss the matter with anyone” during his lifetime. The motion states attorneys interviewed the woman in December 2022.

    The AG’s office calls the new statement hearsay and that there are “many reasons not to believe” the statements made by the woman.

    “This new allegation does not detract one bit from the overwhelming wight of the evidence against petitioner recognized by this court, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit,” the AG’s office wrote.

    Attorneys for the AG’s Office also states Sanchez “to this very day” has never attempted to offer any explanation for the presence of his DNA on Busken’s clothing.

    “And his recent affidavit says nothing more than someone has told him his father confessed. Petitioner’s sperm was on Ms. Busken’s leotard, his father’s was not,” the AG’s Office wrote.

    Dr. Rev. Jeff Hood, Sanchez’s spiritual adviser, said a “myriad of questions” remain about how DNA was handled in the case.

    “The State of Oklahoma has a long history of problematic interactions with DNA evidence,” Hood said in an emailed statement. “Though we intended to do it privately, we now are forced to publicly call on the state to release the original DNA results for further unbiased analysis. Then and only then will we know who killed Juli Busken.”

    Court records show no new motions have been filed in the case as of Monday.

    Sanchez was originally scheduled to be executed Apr. 6 before Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals granted Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s request for more time between executions.

    OCCA set 60 days between executions and moved Sanchez’s execution to Sept. 21.

    https://www.mcalesternews.com/news/o...5eb8798ad.html
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  3. #23
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    An Oklahoma death row inmate who was convicted of killing an OU student in 1996 has had his latest appeal denied

    By K. Querry-Thompson
    KFOR

    In 1996, prosecutors said OU student Juli Busken, vanished after dropping her friend off at the airport.

    The killer was on the loose until 2004, when an OSBI agent allegedly connected Anthony Sanchez in the DNA Index System Database with Busken’s homicide.

    Hood said investigators claimed Sanchez was robbing cars to pay for Christmas presents, when he saw the 21-year-old and jumped at the opportunity.

    It’s a claim that Sanchez and his team have always denied.

    Sanchez’s team claimed that detectives found 40 fingerprints at the scene, but none of them matched Sanchez. They also said the sketch of the suspect didn’t match Sanchez at all.

    Instead, they put forth an alternative suspect- Glenn Sanchez, Anthony’s father.

    “Anthony’s stepmother revealed to me that before Glenn committed suicide, on multiple instances he had confessed to killing Juli Busken,” said Hood. “He would say, you know, ‘I should have done a better job of hiding that body.’”

    Sanchez’s team filed an application for post-conviction relief.

    On Thursday, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals denied that application. Instead, it affirmed the original jury’s judgment and sentence.

    “Counsel further asserts that ‘[a]side from the DNA’- a very considerable aside, indeed, as we shall see- the evidence did not ‘fit’ Anthony Sanchez. He argues the various eyewitness descriptions of the suspect, the lack of Anthony Sanchez’s fingerprints inside Juli Busken’s car after the murder, and the absence of incriminating statements by Anthony Sanchez are evidentiary ‘anomalies’ indicating his innocence. Counsel argues that Glen Sanchez’s alleged confessions are clear and convincing evidence of Anthony Sanchez’s innocence, requiring reversal of his murder conviction or the death sentence, or at minimum, additional discovery, and an evidentiary hearing.

    We respectfully disagree. This Court previously determined that ‘[t]he evidence presented at trial tends to show that [Anthony Sanchez] forced Ms. Busken into her own car around 5:30 a.m., sexually assaulted her in an unknown location, and murdered her on the shoreline of Lake Stanley Draper around 7:00 a.m. on December 20, 1996.”

    The court says that evidence showed that DNA found on Busken’s body was overwhelmingly connected to Sanchez. It also cited evidence that a call made from Busken’s cell phone went to Sanchez’s former girlfriend after the murder.

    As for the ‘confession’ by Sanchez’s father, the court determined that it is hearsay, seeing as Glen Sanchez didn’t leave a confessional before committing suicide.

    Sanchez’s execution is scheduled for Sept. 21, 2023.

    https://kfor.com/news/local/oklahoma...appeal-denied/
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  4. #24
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Oklahoma death row inmate rejects chance for clemency, takes parting shot at Republican governor

    Anthony Sanchez said there is little hope of gaining clemency because of Oklahoma's Republican governor

    By Sarah Rumpf-Whitten
    Fox News

    An Oklahoma death row inmate convicted of raping and killing a University of Oklahoma dance student in 1996 plans to proceed with his death sentence, rejecting his chance for a clemency hearing.

    Anthony Sanchez, 44, told the Associated Press in a telephone interview Thursday that he does not suspect Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, would spare his life.

    "I’ve sat in my cell, and I’ve watched inmate after inmate after inmate get clemency and get denied clemency," Sanchez said. "Either way, it doesn’t go well for the inmates."

    "Either way, it doesn’t go well for the inmates."

    Sanchez cited the recent cases of Bigler Souffer and James Coddington, both of whom were executed after a five-member Pardon and Parole Board recommended clemency in a 3-2 vote. It was later ultimately rejected by Stitt.

    "They went out there and poured their hearts out, man," Sanchez told AP. "Why would I want to be a part of anything like that, if you’re going to sit there and get these guys’ hopes up?"

    "Why wouldn’t I try to prove my innocence through the courts," he added.

    "Why would I want to be a part of anything like that, if you’re going to sit there and get these guys’ hopes up?"

    In 2021, the Republican governor granted clemency to Julius Jones, commuting his death sentence to life in prison without parole.

    In April, the Oklahoma Court of Criminals rejected Sanchez's plea of innocence.

    Sanchez has maintained that his father, Thomas Sanchez, was 21-year-old Juli Busken's actual killer.

    Previously, Thomas' former girlfriend alleged that he confessed to killing the college student prior to his death by suicide. The court ruled that the allegations were hearsay and not enough to overcome "compelling evidence" of Anthony Sanchez’s guilt.

    Busken's death went unsolved for years until DNA recovered from her clothes linked Anthony Sanchez to the crime. He was convicted of rape and murder — and sentenced to die in 2006.

    She was abducted on Dec. 20, 1996, from her apartment complex in Norman, Oklahoma. Her body was found that evening in soureast Oklahoma City. She had been raped and shot in the head.

    Since Sanchez plans to reject a chance at clemency, he is expected to be killed by lethal injection on September 21, 2023.

    Governor Stitt's office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    https://www.foxnews.com/us/oklahoma-...lican-governor
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  5. #25
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    AG declines lawmaker's request to reprocess DNA in Anthony Sanchez death penalty case

    By Jessie Christopher Smith
    The Oklahoman

    Oklahoma’s attorney general has rejected a request from a state lawmaker to reinvestigate DNA evidence in the case of a death row inmate set to be executed in September, saying that recent reprocessing already “conclusively pointed” to his guilt.

    Attorney General Gentner Drummond was asked Thursday by state Rep. Justin Humphrey, R-Lane, to reprocess DNA evidence in the death penalty case of Anthony Castillo Sanchez, after the legislator reviewed Sanchez's case and questioned the accuracy of the DNA testing.

    Drummond declined Humphrey’s request, reiterating his appellate team already reprocessed the DNA evidence months beforehand with results that were “overwhelming” in showing Anthony Sanchez’s guilt.

    “Just as DNA evidence has helped clear the innocent, it can also conclusively show guilt,” Drummond said Sunday in a statement to The Oklahoman. “Anthony Sanchez is guilty beyond any conceivable doubt.”

    Anthony Sanchez, 44, was convicted in 2006 of first-degree murder in the death of 21-year-old University of Oklahoma dance student Juli Busken, who was found raped and shot in the head at Lake Stanley Draper on Dec. 20, 1996.

    Identified as a suspect through DNA, Anthony Sanchez has maintained he is innocent of Busken's murder, and recently claimed his father, Glen Sanchez, confessed to the crime before dying of suicide last April. Drummond described Anthony Sanchez’s claim as “ludicrous” and “despicable.”

    “The evidence is overwhelming that Anthony Sanchez brutally raped and murdered Juli Busken,” Drummond said. “Instead of expressing remorse, he made the cowardly decision to try blaming the crime on his deceased father ― a ludicrous allegation thoroughly discredited by DNA analysis.”

    Earlier this year, investigators compared the DNA profile of Glen Sanchez to the profile that the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation took from Busken’s clothing in 2000.

    After testing a blood sample, investigators said they ruled out Glen Sanchez as a match for the DNA. The team then ran additional reverse paternity testing of the DNA and said there was “at least a 99.9 percent probability” that Glen Sanchez was the “potential biological father” of the DNA profile taken from Busken’s clothing.

    David Ballard, a private investigator hired by the anti-capital punishment group Death Penalty Action to reexamine the case, said an inexperienced lab technician miscommunicated the strength of the DNA evidence to a jury. Ballard also said the DNA evidence might have been contaminated, a claim the AG’s office disputes.

    “There has never been any evidence presented that the DNA was not properly collected or stored,” said Phil Bacharach, a spokesman for the AG’s office.

    A full DNA profile was obtained and shown to match Anthony Sanchez, Bacharach said, and the DNA profile found by state investigators “matches exactly” with the DNA profile found separately by local police officers.

    The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals rejected a request from Anthony Sanchez’s legal counsel for an evidentiary hearing in April. Two months later, Anthony Sanchez publicly stated he wanted to move forward without his court-appointed attorneys and has sought to prove his claim of innocence on his own behalf ever since.

    “What makes (Anthony Sanchez’s) claim all the more despicable is that it makes a mockery of how advances in DNA evidence have exonerated wrongly convicted individuals in recent years,” Drummond’s statement also read.

    Why did Humphrey request the DNA evidence be reprocessed?

    Humphrey, who chairs the Oklahoma House Committee on Criminal Justice and Corrections, is a staunch conservative who strongly advocates the death penalty. He described himself as “somewhat reluctant to involve (himself) in other cases” since he began intervening in the case of Richard Glossip, another high-profile death row inmate whose conviction Humphrey and Drummond both say should be overturned because of false testimony and tampered evidence.

    Knowing that Drummond's stance generated a firestorm of criticism, Humphrey thanked him for his commitment in his letter Thursday while asking the AG to reinvestigate the DNA evidence in Anthony Sanchez's case.

    “I believe that this would be a critical step towards ensuring that the death penalty process is fair and just, not just in this case but in others like it,” Humphrey wrote.

    What happens next with Anthony Sanchez?

    In a letter and audio recording released in June, Anthony Sanchez said he would avoid requesting clemency, or mercy, from Gov. Kevin Stitt. He cited what he characterized as the Republican governor’s unwillingness to grant clemency in past cases, even after the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board recommended it.

    The Rev. Jeff Hood, Anthony Sanchez’s spiritual adviser, told The Oklahoman he is still convinced of the inmate’s innocence, and thanked Humphrey for his willingness to step forward with his stance.

    “It is my firm belief that J.J. Humphrey’s letter will not be the last letter,” Hood said. “I think a lot of people thought when Anthony decided not to do clemency, that it was over. But really, it’s just beginning.”

    Hood said he and other supporters of Anthony Sanchez will continue advocating his case to the AG’s office until Drummond asks for the date of the execution to be pulled.

    Anthony Sanchez is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Sept. 21 at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.

    https://eu.oklahoman.com/story/news/...a/70541802007/

  6. #26
    Administrator Aaron's Avatar
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    This is the same Humphrey that tried to create a Bigfoot hunting season.

    https://abc7news.com/bigfoot-hunting...doors/9875983/

    Also tried to legalize cockfighting.

    Even the most superficial look reveals that these useful idiots are painfully stupid. But of the course the pro-criminal activists are happy to have useful idiots.
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  7. #27
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Anti-death penalty groups part ways over tactics

    OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty has cut ties with a national organization and its partner, saying they are driving a wedge between death-row inmates and their attorneys.

    In July, death-row inmate Anthony C. Sanchez, in a highly unusual move, said he would forego a clemency hearing because the process is unfair.


    Sanchez faces a Sept. 21 execution for the 1996 murder of University of Oklahoma dance student and ballerina Juli Busken, 21.


    Sanchez asked a judge to fire his attorneys and let him proceed by himself. The request was denied.


    His spiritual advisor is the Rev. Jeff Hood, who is based in Arkansas and is a close partner with Death Penalty Action, a nonprofit incorporated in New York.


    The Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty accused Hood of persuading Sanchez to waive his right to a clemency hearing and to represent himself in further legal action.

    The Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty said DPA and Hood use tactics that drive a wedge between clients facing imminent execution and their legal teams.

    Hood said the attorneys and the coalition are responsible for the “slaughter” of death-row inmates in Oklahoma.


    He said the statement put out by the local group is “nothing more than a fart in a whirlwind,” adding that he and DPA have no plans to change their tactics.


    The coalition said attorneys in the Capital Habeas Unit of the Federal Public Defender’s Office are the inmates’ best hope for avoiding execution.


    “I have attended all clemency hearings before the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board since the moratorium on executions was lifted two years ago,” said the Rev. Don Heath, Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty chairman. “I have been impressed with the thoughtfulness and subtlety of the presentations by all of the habeas attorneys. They made better arguments than I would have thought possible.”


    The organization works with the attorneys to coordinate press conferences and strategy to tell each inmate’s story in upcoming clemency hearings.


    Health said his organization has worked with Death Penalty Action since about 2016 but hasn’t been able to work with them in the last six months because of actions the national group has taken.


    “He (Hood) tries to separate every inmate he counsels from their attorneys,” Heath said. “He thinks he knows the case better or can find an attorney that will do a better job. That is just not true.”


    Hood was the spiritual advisor for Creek County killer Scott Eizember, who was put to death in January for the 2003 killing of A.J. Cantrell. Eizember, who also killed Cantrell’s wife, Patsy Cantrell, was subject to one of the largest manhunts in state history.


    “We are part of a broad social justice movement, and sometimes we don’t all agree on tactics,” said Abraham Bonowitz, Death Penalty Action executive director. “That’s OK. They raise money for funerals. We are focused on stopping executions.”


    Hood has worked with at least five Oklahoma prisoners, some of whom are fine with their legal counsel, but others ask Hood if he can help them find new attorneys, Bonowitz said.


    “He’s like Jesus overturning the tables of the money changers, and that’s upset some people and challenged the status quo,” Bonowitz said. “Jeff has done nothing illegal, immoral or unethical, and if he did we would not be standing with him.”

    Source: (Tulsa World)
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  8. #28
    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    Sanchez filed for a stay of execution to the 10th Circuit on 8/31/23.

    https://dockets.justia.com/browse/noscat-6/nos-535
    Thank you for the adventure - Axol

    Tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn’t even matter - Linkin Park

    Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever. - Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt

    I’m going to the ghost McDonalds - Garcello

  9. #29
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    New attorney for death row inmate requests stay of execution

    By Derrick James
    The McAlester News-Capital

    An attorney for an Oklahoma death row inmate claims a previous attorney has more than 40 boxes of case material that needs to be reviewed in his request for a 60-day reprieve of a Sept. 21 execution date.

    In a letter to Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, Eric Allen, the newly hired attorney for Anthony Sanchez, wrote he does not know what is inside the boxes and claims Sanchez’s previous lawyer is refusing to give up the material.

    “Our understanding is that his prior attorneys had not gone through all the materials contained in these boxes. This is unconscionable in a death penalty case,” Allen wrote. “With a Sept. 21 execution date, there simply is not enough time for me to obtain and review all Mr. Sanchez’s legal materials. This is simply a matter of fairness. Can your great state execute this man without all of evidence being reviewed and all avenues exhausted?”

    Sanchez, 45, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection Sept. 21 at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester for the 1996 death of 21-year-old Jewel Jean “Juli” Busken. Sanchez was convicted by a Cleveland County jury during a trial in 2006 after his DNA was found on a leotard belonging to Busken.

    Allen argues in his letter the analysis of the DNA was done “when the scandalized Joyce Gilcrist was managing the Oklahoma City Police crime lab.”

    Gilcrist was fired from the crime lab in 2001 following a lawsuit from a man who was wrongfully convicted of rape due to Gilcrist’s false analysis that resulted in a more than $4 million settlement.

    “I cannot make any assertions whether she was involved in managing Anthony’s case because I do not have the materials to say one way or the other,” Allen wrote. “Her name may be somewhere on the bench notes regarding the analysis and that avenue would absolutely have to be examined and litigated.”

    The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals denied in April a motion for a new hearing in the case over arguments about the DNA and other factors. Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond denied a request made by Rep. Justin Humphrey, R- Lane, to retest the DNA in the case.

    Allen wrote he knows the process is “excruciating for the Buskin family,” but the request is about fairness.

    “Can he be put to death with evidence in boxes we have no idea what is in them? Of course, even if we had them there is simply not enough time to go through such a magnitude of paper and information and have it made sense,” Allen wrote to Stitt.

    Supporters of Sanchez are also making a more than 120-mile trek on foot from McAlester to the Oklahoma Capitol to deliver a letter from Sanchez asking for a stay in his execution to allow his legal team time to look at the case.

    Supporters said they expect to deliver Sanchez’s letter and accumulated signatures from an online petition to Stitt’s office at the Capitol in Oklahoma City on Wednesday at 4 p.m.

    https://www.mcalesternews.com/news/n...ea35777b8.html
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  10. #30
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    A preacher to death row inmates says he wants to end executions

    Critics warn he's only seeking fame

    With just weeks left before his scheduled execution, Oklahoma death row inmate Anthony Sanchez took the unusual step of firing his attorneys and skipping a clemency hearing that many viewed as the last chance to spare his life.

    Sanchez's decision, and his relationship with an activist pastor who is a spiritual adviser to death row inmates across the country, has drawn fierce criticism from capital defense attorneys and anti-death penalty groups.

    They say the Rev. Jeff Hood is turning desperate inmates against their lawyers, who are often the last line of defense in a state with one of the busiest death chambers in the country.

    Hood is a death row minister associated with national anti-capital punishment organization Death Penalty Action. He says his intention is to raise the profile of inmates and draw public attention to their cases to stop executions.

    Critics say Hood is in it to keep himself in the limelight and raise money for Death Penalty Action.

    Sanchez, 44, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection on Thursday for the 1996 killing of 21-year-old University of Oklahoma dance student Juli Busken. The slaying went unsolved for years until DNA recovered from her clothes linked Sanchez to the crime.

    Sanchez previously exhausted his state appeals and his case has wound its way through federal court.

    Sanchez's court-appointed federal attorneys who were recently removed from the case and members of a longtime advocacy group, the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, place the blame on Hood for Sanchez's decision to forego clemency.

    The Oklahoma group claims Hood has worked to drive a wedge between death row inmates and their court-appointed legal teams, sometimes offering misguided legal suggestions to the condemned inmates.

    Don Heath, a minister and attorney who serves as executive director of the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, said his group tries to work in conjunction with defense attorneys to coordinate strategy, unlike Hood and Death Penalty Action.

    “Essentially, we think they're doing harm to the inmates,” Heath said. “I don't try to offer inmates legal advice. On some of the cases, especially the Sanchez case, they seem to be they’re giving their legal assessment of the case.”

    Randall Coyne, Sanchez's former court-appointed attorney, is even more blunt in his assessment.

    “What they're doing is using this myth of Anthony Sanchez, an innocent man facing his death, as a publicity fundraising campaign,” Coyne said. “This is all about raising money."

    Public filings with the IRS show Death Penalty Action has significantly boosted its fundraising in recent years, bringing in nearly $425,000 in 2021, the most recent year for which its filings were available. The group received around $90,000 in 2018.

    In the last week, Death Penalty Action has sent fundraising solicitations out every day, many focused on Hood's plan to walk 120 miles (193 kilometers) from the state penitentiary in McAlester to deliver petitions to Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt seeking a delay in Sanchez's execution.

    The group's executive director, Abraham Bonowitz, earned about $76,500 in compensation in 2021, while the executive treasurer worked part-time for about $43,000.

    “Nobody is getting rich here, I can tell you that,” said Bonowitz, who disputed suggestions that the group pits death row inmates against their attorneys.

    “We are not in the business of trying to get in the way of attorneys,” he said. “We're in the business of trying to get people off of death row.”

    Hood's critics also include District Court Judge Joe Heaton in the Western District of Oklahoma, who heard testimony at a hearing this summer about Hood's activity among death row inmates.

    Heaton described Hood as a “nominal spiritual adviser” who interjected himself between capital defendants and their attorneys, which Heaton said was at least partly motivated "by considerations other than the best interest of the client.”

    Hood was profiled in GQ magazine after organizing a Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas where five police officers were killed in 2016. He claims not to earn a salary from Death Penalty Action nor make any revenue from his podcast and YouTube channel featuring interviews with death row inmates. He also disputed the suggestion that he offers legal advice to death row inmates.

    “It's ludicrous to think that some spiritual adviser could come off of the street and say, ‘You need to get rid of your attorneys,’” Hood said. “If they were doing such a great job, then these guys wouldn't want to get rid of them.”

    Sanchez aid in a recent interview from death row that the decision to hire new attorneys was his alone.

    “I did not trust the lawyers that they have representing me,” he said. “There is no trust whatsoever.”

    Hood has been fiercely critical of the Oklahoma public defenders representing death row inmates, saying in a recent interview that they “seem to be good at one thing: making sure the slaughter continues.”

    Emma Rolls, the chief of the capital unit at the Federal Public Defender's office in Oklahoma City, declined to comment on Hood.

    But Dale Baich, a former federal public defender who has defended Oklahoma death row inmates, said it can be detrimental for an outside group to promote legal theories out of alignment with an inmate's legal claims.

    “The lawyers know the most about the case,” Baich said. “And someone on the outside may have an observation or an idea that could end up being harmful in some way.”

    Ellen Yaroshefsky, a professor of legal ethics at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University in New York, said capital defense lawyers are highly specialized experts and described Hood's conduct as “very troubling.”

    “In numerous cases, he appears to interfere between highly skilled lawyers and their clients, who are emotionally distraught, extremely vulnerable and often mentally challenged,” Yaroshefsky said. “And he appears to discourage ongoing representation.”

    Oklahoma has executed more inmates per capita than any other state since the 1976 reinstatement of the death penalty. The state has carried out 9 executions since resuming lethal injections in October 2021 following a nearly 6-year hiatus resulting from problems with executions in 2014 and 2015.

    Since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that death row inmates have a right to have a minister present with them inside the death chamber, Hood has been present for the executions earlier this year of Arthur Brown Jr. in Texas and Scott Eizember in Oklahoma.

    Hood said he plans to continue advocating for death row inmates and against the death penalty.

    “It's about helping these guys accomplish agency,” he said, “and I'm not going to stop.”

    (source: The Canadian Press)
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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