Convicted murderer John Fitzgerald Hanson was returned to Oklahoma Saturday from a federal prison in Louisiana to face execution.
The transfer came 40 days after President Donald Trump issued an executive order “restoring” the death penalty. The Biden administration had blocked Hanson’s return in 2022.
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 for murdering retired banker Mary Agnes Bowles after kidnapping her from the parking lot of a Tulsa mall on Aug. 31, 1999.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi last month directed the Federal Bureau of Prisons to transfer Hanson “so that Oklahoma can carry out this just sentence.”
Oklahoma’s attorney general, Gentner Drummond, said in a news release that the state Department of Corrections transferred the inmate late Saturday. Hanson now is being held at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.
“For the family and friends of Mary Bowles, the wait for justice has been a long and frustrating one,” Drummond said 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.”
Drummond asked for the transfer on Jan. 23, three days after Trump issued his executive order on capital punishment.
“It is the policy of the United States to ensure that the laws that authorize capital punishment are respected and faithfully implemented, and to counteract the politicians and judges who subvert the law by obstructing and preventing the execution of capital sentences.” Trump wrote.
A federal judge in Louisiana on Wednesday refused to block the transfer.
What did Hanson do?
Hanson and an accomplice wanted Bowles’ car for a robbery spree. The victim was 77. She was kidnapped after walking at the Promenade Mall for exercise.
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.
Why was the transfer denied in 2022?
Hanson had been set for execution in Oklahoma on Dec. 15, 2022. 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.
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.
When will the execution take place?
Hanson could be executed in June.
Oklahoma is set to execute confessed killer Wendell Grissom by lethal injection on March 20 at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.
Drummond has said he will ask the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to schedule Hanson to be executed next. The court is now setting executions about 90 days apart.
In his court declaration, Harris said the delay in carrying out the execution “has denied justice to the victims’ families, the Tulsa community, and Oklahoma.”
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