Execution Method Debated in Md.

Judges to Rule on Condemned Inmate's Request for Stay

With less than six days remaining before Steven Oken could be put to death, the Maryland Court of Appeals yesterday repeatedly questioned the state's execution protocols as defense lawyers pressed for a stay and a full hearing on the process.

Several judges asked Assistant Attorney General Ann N. Bosse whether corrections officials' use of three drugs to execute a condemned inmate conforms with what legislators intended, given that the law mentions a procedure for two substances.

Bosse assured them that there was no difference and that Oken, 42, would die in a humane way in keeping with his constitutional rights -- contrary, she noted in a barbed conclusion, to how his victim, Dawn Marie Garvin, died after being sexually assaulted and shot in her Baltimore County apartment nearly 17 years ago.

Defense lawyer Fred Bennett fielded few questions and denied that Oken's late challenge was a delaying tactic.

Although he did not raise the issues with either of Oken's two previous death warrants, Bennett now wants the appellate court to order a full examination of lethal injection. "Evolving standards of decency compel this court to intervene," he said.

Attorneys on both sides expect the judges to rule today, at least on Oken's request for a stay of execution. Oken has submitted a clemency petition to Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R), and three Roman Catholic prelates are asking the governor to commute his capital sentence.

In a letter dated today, Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, the archbishop of Washington; Cardinal William H. Keeler, the archbishop of Baltimore; and Bishop Michael A. Saltarelli of Wilmington, Del., urge Ehrlich to have mercy on Oken.

"The question confronting us today is not whether the state may impose the death penalty, but whether it should," the church officials wrote. "We are concerned that capital punishment further advances a destructive anti-life attitude."