Death row inmate Bigler Stouffer's supporters submit signatures for clemency to Gov. Stitt

Supporters of Bigler Jobe "Bud" Stouffer II, the 79-year-old death row inmate who faces execution Dec. 9, delivered thousands of signatures to Gov. Kevin Stitt’s office Wednesday, asking Stitt to grant clemency in the case.

“There’s been so many things over the years that has not made sense,” Stouffer’s son, Trey Stouffer, told reporters.

Stouffer has been on death row for more than three decades for the 1985 murder of Linda Reaves, a teacher in Putnam City.

Reaves was dating a homebuilder, Doug Ivens, who was going through a divorce. Stouffer was dating Ivens' estranged wife.

Ivens survived three wounds from a .357-caliber Magnum pistol, including one to the face. Ivens crawled to a phone, called 911 and identified Stouffer as the shooter.

Prosecutors alleged the motive for the shooting was a $2 million life insurance policy and that Stouffer staged the crime scene to make it look like a murder-suicide by planting 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 left them both for dead," he said, according to the testimony.

Stouffer claims he is innocent.

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board in November voted 3-2 to recommend clemency after a lengthy discussion about the state’s first execution in more than six years.

Following the Oct. 28, execution of John Marion Grant, 60, media reports said Grant convulsed and vomited during the lethal injection procedure.

Stitt has final say in Stouffer’s case. The death sentence will be changed to life in prison without the possibility of parole if the governor accepts the Pardon and Parole Board’s recommendation.

At the Capitol on Wednesday, supporters of Stouffer argued that blood splatter evidence and DNA testing point to his innocence.

“Did we get this right, and was there information that was not allowed because it wasn’t available, or because it was lied about, or because the defense at the original trial didn’t bring it in?” Abraham Bonowitz, who runs a national group called Death Penalty Action, told reporters.

Bonowitz said about 10,000 signatures in support of Stouffer's clemency were submitted to Stitt's office.

The Rev. Howard Potts, spiritual adviser to Stouffer, said the death row inmate is faith-filled and is allowed to share the Christian gospel with other inmates facing execution.

“This is not a righteous killing by any means,” Potts said of Stouffer’s impending execution. “Nothing wrong with the state having the authority to take a life, that’s granted, even biblically. But not if there’s an innocent question.”

An Oklahoma City federal judge is going to rule on a legal challenge to the state’s lethal injection process after hearing from experts at a trial next year.

The trial is set to start Feb. 28.

More than 30 death row inmates are complaining in a lawsuit that a sedative used at the start of the process will expose them to excruciating pain in violation of their constitutional rights.

An execution was set for Stouffer because he was not part of that legal challenge. He has filed his own lawsuit and is seeking an execution stay.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma death row inmate Bigler Stouffer asks Gov. Stitt for pardon