Inmate's Last Words: 'Peace to Everyone'

Oklahoma executed a man Thursday whose transfer to state custody was expedited by the Trump administration, per the AP. "Peace to everyone," said John Fitzgerald Hanson, 61, while strapped to a gurney inside the prison's death chamber. The execution began at 10:01am. After the lethal drugs began to flow, a doctor entered the death chamber at 10:06am and declared him unconscious.

• Hanson had been serving a life sentence in federal prison in Louisiana for several unrelated federal convictions. Federal officials transferred him to Oklahoma custody in March to follow through on President Trump's sweeping executive order to more actively support the death penalty.
• Hanson was sentenced to die in Oklahoma after he was convicted of carjacking, kidnapping, and killing a Tulsa woman in 1999.

• The niece of victim Mary Bowles expressed frustration at the litigation over Hanson's death sentence, which dragged on for decades: "Capital punishment is not an effective form of justice when it takes 26 years," said Sara Mooney.
• Hanson's attorneys argued in a last-minute appeal that he did not receive a fair clemency hearing last month, claiming that one of the board members who denied him clemency was biased because he worked for the Tulsa County District Attorney's Office when Hanson was prosecuted. A district court judge this week issued a temporary stay halting the execution, but that was later vacated.
• During last month's clemency hearing, Hanson expressed remorse for his crimes and apologized to victims' families. "I'm not an evil person," Hanson said via a video link from the prison. "I was caught in a situation I couldn't control. I can't change the past, but I would if I could."

(More death penalty stories.)