Ky. gov sets execution date for convicted killer

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Gov. Steve Beshear set a Sept. 16 execution date for a rapist and murderer, but held off signing two other death warrants Wednesday because there is a shortage of a key drug used in executions.

Beshear signed the warrant for 53-year-old Gregory L. Wilson, saying all his appeals "as a matter of right" had been exhausted.

"I have reviewed the facts of this case in detail, and I do not find any such strong extenuating circumstances in this case," Beshear said in a statement.

Wilson was sentenced to die Oct. 31, 1988, for his part in the 1987 kidnapping and murder of Deborah Pooley a year earlier in Kenton County in northern Kentucky, just across the Ohio River from her hometown of Hamilton, Ohio. A co-defendant in the case, Brenda Humphrey, is serving a life sentence.

Wilson and Humphrey forced Pooley, who was living in northern Kentucky, into the back seat of her car on May 29, 1987. Wilson raped and later strangled her while Humphrey drove. Wilson was arrested two weeks later.

Beshear selected Wilson's case from among three recommended for execution warrants by Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway because it was the oldest.

Requests for execution dates are pending for Ralph Baze, convicted of killing a sheriff and deputy in 1992, and Robert Carl Foley, convicted in 1993 and 1994 of killing six people in two incidents.

Beshear said he signed only one warrant because the state has enough sodium thiopental for just one execution. Kentucky's stock expires Oct. 1 and a new supply of the drug is not expected until early in 2011.

"The Cabinet's repeated attempts to obtain additional thiopental have so far been unsuccessful," Beshear said.

Allison Gardner Martin, a spokeswoman for Conway, said he was notified Wednesday of the decision to sign the warrant for Wilson. She declined further comment, saying the Attorney General's office will represent the state in any appeals he files.

Wilson's attorney, Dan Goyette of Louisville, did not return an e-mail seeking comment.

Wilson's execution would be the first since Kentucky readopted its lethal injection protocol in May, seven months after the Kentucky Supreme Court halted all executions, ruling there were problems with the way the protocol was put in place.

Three other inmates are challenging the way the protocol was readopted, but a judge in Frankfort has not ruled in the case.

Wilson's spiritual adviser, Gerald Otahal of Owensboro, said the inmate had recently come around from wanting to be executed after spending more than two decades on death row.

"Oh God," Otahal said. "Sept. 16, that's the date I'll be praying for."

Attempts to reach Pooley's family in Hamilton, Ohio, were unsuccessful.

Wilson, who previously served a prison sentence in Ohio for rape, claimed on appeal that he was forced to represent himself at trial after a dispute with his lawyers. The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that claim, saying Wilson effectively waived his right to his court-appointed lawyer by agreeing to represent himself when a judge would not appoint a new attorney.

Wilson also claimed his right to a fair trial was violated because Humphrey was having a sexual affair with another Kenton County judge before and during the trial. The affair became public during Humphrey's appeals in 2001.

Humphrey testified at trial and shifted much of the blame for the kidnapping and murder to Wilson. The court ruled that Wilson had an opportunity to question Humphrey, but declined to, even if he didn't know about the affair.

Wilson has also filed a federal lawsuit challenging multiple aspects of Kentucky's execution protocol. That suit, which says the state uses a sedative on the day of execution that interferes with the drug cocktail used in lethal injections, is pending before a federal appeals court.

Kentucky has executed three people since 1976. Harold McQueen was executed in the electric chair in 1997 for killing a convenience store clerk in 1981. Eddie Lee Harper was executed by lethal injection in 1999. Marco Allen Chapman was executed by lethal injection in November 2008.