Stay of Execution Upheld in Md. Murder Case

A federal appeals court today upheld an indefinite stay of execution for condemned Maryland inmate Steven Oken.

The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, voting two to one, declined to vacate yesterday's decision by a federal judge critical of the state's diligence in turning over key documents to defense attorneys. Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of Virginia opposed the decision by fellow appeals court Judges M. Blane Michael of West Virginia and William B. Traxler Jr. of South Carolina.

With Oken's execution warrant set to expire at midnight Friday, the state attorney general's office responded quickly to the appeals court decision, asking Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist for an immediate reversal by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Maryland Solicitor General Gary Bair minimized the consequence of the single-paragraph denial by the appeals court, which historically has been unfriendly to death-row prisoners. "With them, it really just depends on what the three-judge panel is," Bair said. "Sometimes you have conservative judges. Sometimes you have liberal judges."

Oken attorney Fred Bennett said the defense team was "elated" by the decision and that their client was "of course relieved."

"We're two for two, so to speak, at this point," Bennett said at a midday news conference at his office.

Bennett, who has been involved in the case through more than a decade of appeals, defended Oken's constitutional right to question the manner and method by which he will lose his life. "Every defendant that faces death by lethal injection has the right to raise an 8th Amendment claim," Bennett said. "It deals with the method and manner of execution."

"Some would argue that life with out parole is worse than death," Bennett added. "Mr. Oken has indicated that life without parole is preferable to death."

In yesterday's ruling, U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte said Oken's defense was hurt by the state's "late, last-minute production" of lethal injection procedures it would use to carry out his capital sentence.

"Fundamental fairness, if not due process, requires that the execution protocol that will regulate an inmate's death be forwarded to him in a prompt and timely fashion," the judge wrote. He ordered the state within 48 hours to provide Oken's attorneys a complete copy of its just-revised execution manual, which he said should have been given to the defense by the end of May.

The stay -- the third for Oken in as many years -- battered relatives of Dawn Marie Garvin. The 20-year-old Baltimore County college student and newlywed was the first of three women Oken sexually assaulted and shot during a two-week killing rampage in late 1987.

Yesterday, Garvin's distraught mother, Betty Romano, said Messitte let the family down "just like the rest of the judicial system has let us down. . . . I want someone to tell me what's the best way to put someone to death for murdering three innocent women."

Yesterday's news reached Garvin's brother as he demonstrated with his father and friends outside the Supermax prison in downtown Baltimore, just a short walk from the state's execution chamber. They had planned on remaining until Oken was dead. "We're going to keep the faith that this is going to happen," Fred Romano pledged.

Messitte took note of the torment Garvin endured before her death and the pain her survivors have dealt with since. "The suffering that this young woman underwent, that her family and friends have undergone since, is unimaginable," his opinion opened.