Oklahoma parole board rejects clemency for death row inmate

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) – Oklahoma’s Pardon and Parole Board has narrowly rejected granting clemency for a death row inmate convicted of killing a prison cafeteria worker in 1998.

The board’s 3-2 vote Tuesday paves the way for John Marion Grant to be executed on Oct. 28. It would be the first execution in Oklahoma in more than six years, following a series of problematic lethal injections.

Now 60, Grant was convicted of murder and sentenced to death for killing 58-year-old Gay Carter at the Dick Conner Correctional Center in Hominy.

Grant’s attorneys did not dispute that he killed Carter, but said his trial attorneys never properly presented mitigating evidence to the jury, such as his difficult childhood.