Overview

• John Hanson, convicted of the 1999 carjacking, kidnapping and murders of Mary Bowles and Jerald Thurman, was put to death by lethal injection at 10:11 a.m. on June 12 at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.
• The Biden administration had blocked Hanson’s transfer from federal custody in December 2022, but President Trump’s March executive order directed federal officials to move him from a Louisiana prison to Oklahoma for execution.
• A district court judge granted a last-minute stay over allegations of bias by a clemency board member, but the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals vacated the stay and the U.S. Supreme Court refused a separate appeal Wednesday.
• Hanson had been serving a life sentence for unrelated federal convictions and his attorneys argued he was denied a fair clemency hearing and had been dominated by an accomplice, while Hanson himself expressed remorse during the clemency proceeding.
• This execution was the third carried out in the United States this week and the 23rd of the year, reflecting a recent surge in federal and state capital punishments.