'Vicious killer' whose execution was stopped under Biden to now proceed because of Trump

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'Vicious killer' whose execution was stopped under Biden to now proceed because of Trump Oklahoma scheduled John Hanson's execution for Dec. 15, 2002, but the Biden administration blocked his transfer from federal custody to the state. Now it's back on amid a busy year for executions.
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Most death row inmates faced one execution method in modern history. Now, there are many alternative ways to die.
An Oklahoma death row inmate whose execution was thwarted by President Joe Biden's administration, only for it to get the green light under President Donald Trump, is now set to die on Thursday.
John Hanson, 61, is set to be executed by lethal injection for killing 77-year-old Mary Agnes Bowles after he and another man carjacked and kidnapped her from a mall on Aug. 3, 1999. The men also killed a witness, Jerald Thurman.
"I can't change the past," Hanson said at a recent clemency board hearing asking for mercy. "I would if I could."
Hanson's execution will come the same week that he won a stay from a judge, only for it to be overturned by a higher court. If the execution moves forward as scheduled, it will be the 23rd in the U.S. this year and the third of four executions this week alone.
Here's what you need to know about the execution, including why Hanson's fate changed after Trump took office for the second time.
When is the execution?
Hanson is scheduled to be executed at 10 a.m. CT on Thursday, June 12, at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. It would be the second execution in Oklahoma this year.
Nolan Clay, a reporter for The Oklahoman − part of the USA TODAY Network − is set to be among the witnesses to the execution.
What was John Hanson convicted of?
On Aug. 31, 1999, Mary Bowles was in the Promenade Mall in Tulsa, getting in one of the frequent walks she liked to do for exercise.
When she got back to her car, John Hanson and Victor Miller pulled their guns, then carjacked and kidnapped Bowles. They took her to an isolated area near a dirt pit, according to court records.
The owner of the pit, Jerald Thurman, was there and saw the car circling the pit before it drove up to him. Miller got out and shot Thurman four times, including once in the head, as Bowles sat helplessly in the back of the car, court records say.
Miller drove a short distance away, during which Bowles asked the men: "Do you have any kids or anyone who loves you?" according to court records, prompting Hanson to punch her. Shortly after, Miller stopped the car, and Hanson forced Bowles out and shot her her at least six times, court records say.
Thurman's nephew, who had been on the phone with him just before the attack, found his wounded uncle still alive shortly after the shooting. Thurman died two weeks later.
Bowles's badly "significantly decomposed" body was found more than a week later on Sept. 7, 1999, court records say.
Hanson and Miller continued on what prosecutors called an "armed-felony binge," robbing a video store and a bank at gunpoint over a five-day period before Miller's wife turned the men in following an argument. They were captured two days after Bowles' body was found.
Miller was sentenced to life in prison, and Hanson got the death penalty. Miller also later bragged about having been the one to shoot Bowles, according to court records. All of that adds up to "a disturbing miscarriage of justice," Hanson's attorneys say.
Hanson explained his actions at a recent clemency hearing, describing Miller as driving the violence.
"I was caught in a situation I couldn't control," he said. "Things were happening so fast, and at the spur of the moment, due to my lack of decisiveness and fear, I responded incorrectly, and two people lost their lives."
Who was Mary Bowles? 'A gentle person'
The turnout for Mary Bowles' funeral showed just how beloved the avid volunteer was in the community.
Hundreds of family, friends and fellow volunteers packed her funeral to share their memories of the 77-year-old, according to an archived story in the Tulsa World.
Among Bowles' many volunteer organizations was a local hospital where she had logged over 11,000 hours in the neonatal unit for critical newborn babies, the Oklahoman reported in 1999.
"She was such a gentle person," Beverly Farrell, a hospital director, told The Oklahoman. "I can't imagine her offering resistance to anyone. She would have given up her car. I don't understand how anyone could be violent to her."
Though Bowles never married and had no children herself, she treated over a dozen nephews and nieces as if they were her own, friends and family told media outlets at the time.
"She had to be the greatest aunt in the world," Farrell said.
Bowles also had a passion for music and traveling. She majored in music education at Oklahoma A&M and played at the Tulsa Philharmonic for three seasons, according to the Oklahoman. Bowles once took a hot-air balloon ride over Lake Tahoe and enjoyed cross-country skiing in the winter, niece Linda Behrends told the Tulsa World.
Farrell said Bowles' murder was devastating for the hospital and the community: "She made such a meaningful impact here in all that she did."
What does President Donald Trump have to do with this execution?
Hanson was imprisoned in Louisiana, serving a life sentence for bank robbery and other federal crimes, when Oklahoma scheduled his execution for Bowles' murder.
Hanson's execution had been set for Dec. 15, 2022, but the Biden administration blocked his transfer to Oklahoma from federal custody in Louisiana. The move was in line with Biden's opposition to the death penalty and came a couple years before Biden commuted the death sentences of all but three federal death row inmates just before he left office in December.
During Trump's first month in office this year, he signed an executive order restoring federal executions, calling the death penalty "an essential tool for deterring and punishing those who would commit the most heinous crimes."
Three days later, Oklahoma's Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond asked the U.S. Department of Justice to transfer Hanson to his state. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi directed the Federal Bureau of Prisons to transfer Hanson from Louisiana, and he arrived in Oklahoma in March.
"For the family and friends of Mary Bowles, the wait for justice has been a long and frustrating one," Drummond said in a news release shortly after Hanson's transfer. "While the Biden Administration inexplicably protected this vicious killer from the execution chamber, I am grateful President Trump and Attorney General Bondi recognized the importance of this murderer being back in Oklahoma so justice can be served."
John Hanson won a stay from a judge this week
Hanson's execution was in doubt after an Oklahoma judge granted him a stay on Monday. The stay stemmed from Hanson's arguments that one of three members of the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board who voted to deny him clemency was biased. (The board voted 3-2.)
Hanson said that board member Sean Malloy was a prosecutor in Tulsa County when Hanson was resentenced in 2006 and therefore should not have been allowed to weigh in on his clemency petition. Malloy said he never worked on Hanson's case.
Oklahoma County District Judge Richard Ogden ordered a stay of execution pending Hanson's lawsuit against the board over Malloy's participation. Drummond immediately appealed the ruling and on Wednesday, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals overturned it, allowing the execution to proceed.
Hanson's attorney, Emma Rolls, said in a statement that the appeals court's ruling "leaves Mr. Hanson at imminent risk of being executed without the constitutional safeguards he's entitled to under law."
'No person facing execution should have to plead for mercy in front of a decisionmaker with direct ties to their prosecution," Rolls, said. "We are pursuing all available avenues to ensure that Mr. Hanson receives a fair process before this irreversible punishment is carried out.'
Contributing: Nolan Clay, The Oklahoman
Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat.