Two executions to proceed in Oklahoma after appeals court denies stays
McALESTER — Admitted double murderer Donald Anthony Grant has lost again in court and remains on schedule to be executed Thursday.
The execution will be the third in Oklahoma since lethal injections resumed in the state last year.
The execution is set to begin at 10 a.m. Thursday at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. A federal appeals court refused Monday to issue a stay.
Death penalty opponents plan to demonstrate outside the governor's office at 9 a.m. Thursday. They will begin a silent vigil at 10 a.m.
“Donald Grant should be confined to a mental institution not prison,” said Rev. Don Heath, chair of the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver also denied a stay Monday to death row inmate Gilbert Ray Postelle. His execution is set for Feb. 17.
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Both had asked the appeals court to intervene after a federal judge in Oklahoma City refused to block their executions.
Their attorneys complain that they will be exposed to an unconstitutional level of pain during the procedure because the first drug, the sedative midazolam, doesn't work.
In its order Monday, the appeals court ruled the death row inmates failed to show the district judge abused his discretion in denying their motion for a preliminary injunction.
What did Donald Grant do?
Grant, 46, was sentenced to death for murdering two workers at a LaQuinta Inn in Del City during a 2001 robbery.
He confessed to committing the robbery to bail his girlfriend out of jail. He also admitted he killed manager Brenda McElyea and front desk clerk Suzette Smith so they couldn't identify him.
Grant said at a clemency hearing in November he was not in his rightful mind at the time of the murders.
"God and the devil ... I feel they works through us," he said. "I let ... that entity talk to me, which is the devil."
That vote means the governor cannot intervene.
Defense experts have diagnosed him as schizophrenic but state experts say he is a faker and really just antisocial.
What did Gilbert Postelle do?
Postelle, 35, was convicted of murdering four people on Memorial Day 2005 outside a trailer in Del City. He was sentenced to death for two of the murders and to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the other two.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma to carry out execution after appeals court ruling
