A terminally ill death row inmate described by his attorney as being "on the verge of death" was executed in Oklahoma on Tuesday.
Jimmy Dale Bland, who had advanced lung cancer that spread to his brain and his hip bone despite radiation and chemotherapy, was put to death for the Nov. 14, 1996, murder of 62-year-old Doyle Windle Rains 11 years ago.
The state parole board had refused to block his execution, despite his defense attorney, David Autry, telling the five-member Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board that doctors said Bland would only have as little as six months to live.
The board voted 5-0 to deny clemency for Bland, 49. Bland chose not to address the board via videoconference from his cell at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester and did not speak to board investigators before the June 12 hearing.
Bland spent 20 years of a 60-year sentence in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter and kidnapping charges in 1975. He had been out of prison for about a year when he was accused of shooting Rains to death.
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Bland's final appeal in April.
Autry said courts had found prosecutorial misconduct in Bland's trial but that the acts were not serious enough to reverse the conviction and order a new trial.
