Hanson, who had been housed in Louisiana, arrived in Oklahoma to face a likely execution by the state for his murder conviction. The Biden administration previously blocked the move.
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Authorities have returned federal inmate John Fitzgerald Hanson to Oklahoma to face a likely execution about a month after President Donald Trump issued an executive order restoring federal executions.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi directed the Federal Bureau of Prisons to transfer Hanson from a Louisiana prison in February, “so that Oklahoma can carry out this just sentence.” A federal judge in Louisiana declined to block the transfer, and Hanson arrived in Oklahoma on Saturday.
Oklahoma’s Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond asked the U.S. Department of Justice for the transfer on Jan. 23, three days after Trump issued the executive order.
Hanson, 60, was serving a life sentence for bank robbery and other federal crimes at the U.S. Penitentiary in Pollock, Louisiana. He faces execution in Oklahoma for murdering retired banker Mary Agnes Bowles, 77, after kidnapping her from the parking lot of a Tulsa mall on Aug. 31, 1999.
“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 Sunday. “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.”
Hanson’s attorneys in the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Oklahoma fought to prevent his transfer from federal custody, according to the Associated Press.
USA TODAY was reaching out to his attorneys for comment Monday.
Drummond is expected to ask the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to hand down an execution date later this year.
Why was the transfer previously denied?
Hanson had been set for execution in Oklahoma on Dec. 15, 2022 but the Biden administration blocked his transfer.
He was already in federal custody when the conviction in Oklahoma was handed down − according to KOSU.
A regional director at the Federal Bureau of Prisons refused to release him, writing “his transfer to state authorities for state execution is not in the public interest.”
The position was in keeping with the Biden administration’s opposition to the death penalty, a stance that led the administration to commute the sentences of almost all federal death row inmates.
Joe Biden had promised during his 2020 campaign “to work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow the federal government’s example.”
After Biden took office, his attorney general, Merrick Garland, imposed a moratorium on federal executions. Bondi lifted the moratorium Feb. 5.
Trump called the death penalty, “an essential tool for deterring and punishing those who would commit the most heinous crimes,” in his executive order.
What was Hanson convicted of?
Hanson and an accomplice wanted Bowles’ car for a robbery spree, kidnapping her after she walked at the Promenade Mall in Tulsa for exercise, according to The Oklahoman − a part of the USA TODAY Network.
Hanson punched her in the face when she asked if he had anyone who loved him, the lead prosecutor, former Tulsa County District Attorney Tim Harris, said in a Feb. 20 court declaration.
Hanson shot her in a ditch near Owasso after the accomplice gunned down a dirt pit owner, Jerald Thurman, according to testimony at his trial. Her body wasn’t found for days.
The dirt pit owner had spotted them on his property. Hanson later confessed to a friend, saying, “Everything went bad.”
Hanson was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the dirt pit owner’s murder.
Death penalty in Oklahoma
Hanson will likely be the second person executed in Oklahoma this year.
Drummond asked in his letter to the Justice Department that Hanson be transferred ahead of upcoming execution of Wendell Grissom by lethal injection on March 20 so that he could be scheduled for the next execution date. The court is currently setting executions about 90 days apart.
Hanson’s transfer comes on the heels of the Supreme Court ordering a new trial for inmate Richard Glossip last week.
Drummond had found that trial attorneys hid evidence that might have led to an acquittal but the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals said last year that Drummond’s request to set aside Glossip’s conviction was not sufficient reason to halt his execution.
The state argued to the Supreme Court that they did not believe that Glossip is innocent but that he should be given a new trial.
The most recent execution in the state took place in December, when Kevin Ray Underwood was put to death by lethal injection for the murder of his neighbor, Jamie Rose Bolin, in April of 2006.
The state with the highest per capita execution rate carried out four executions in 2024 and 125 since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
Contributing: Amaris Encinas, Maureen Groppe
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