Okla. prepares to execute inmate for deaths of 3

OKLAHOMA CITY — A death row inmate was awaiting word Monday from the U.S. Supreme Court on his final effort to halt his execution in Oklahoma, claiming in part that the state should be forced to have an extra dose of a sedative in case the first is ineffective.

Michael Hooper, 39, is scheduled for lethal injection Tuesday evening at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester for the December 1993 deaths of his former girlfriend, 23-year-old Cynthia Lynn Jarman, and her two children, 5-year-old Tonya and 3-year-old Timmy.

Hooper has asked the courts to halt his execution, arguing that the state's three-drug execution protocol in unconstitutional. Lower courts have refused, and the Supreme Court had yet to rule Monday on the request, defense attorney Jim Drummond said.

Hooper filed a lawsuit last month seeking to force the state to have an extra dose of pentobarbital, the first of three drugs administered during a lethal injection, on hand during his execution. Pentobarbital is used to render a condemned inmate unconscious, followed by vecuronium bromide, which stops the inmate's breathing, and potassium chloride to stop the heart.

Drummond has said that if the sedative is ineffective, the remaining drugs may cause great pain in violation of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

The lawsuit also notes that other states have adopted a one-drug process using a fast-acting barbiturate that supporters say causes no pain.

A Canadian County jury convicted Hooper and recommended he receive the death penalty after prosecutors argued that he shot Jarman at point-blank range, then shot her children to prevent them from being witnesses to her murder. Each victim was shot twice in the head and their bodies were buried in a shallow grave in a field northwest of Oklahoma City.

Hooper, who has requested a last meal of fruit and coffee, is set to be the fourth death-row inmate executed this year in Oklahoma.

Gary Roland Welch was executed Jan. 5 for fatally stabbing a 35-year-old man, and Timothy Stemple was executed on March 15 for the beating death of his wife. Michael Selsor was put to death on May 1 for the shooting death of a Tulsa convenience store manager.