A Race to the Death

Texas faces a challenge from the Sooner state

The national trend toward a slowdown in executions amid fears of wrongful convictions has not shaken the resolve of the Sooner state. "It's the wild West," a minister named Robin Meyers said outside an Oklahoma City courtroom where a death-row inmate's attorneys made an unsuccessful plea for mercy last week. "Texas and Oklahoma are in a race to see who can kill the most people."

Texas won in a rout last year (40 to 11), but Oklahoma led the country in per-capita executions. And the state is beginning 2001 ambitiously. It can't claim credit if Timothy McVeigh is put to death--he's a federal prisoner--but it has already scheduled eight of its own through Feb. 1. And one of the two last week included the first black woman put to death in the U.S. in nearly a half-century.

As her day approached, Wanda Jean Allen, 41, behaved unlike the many other death- row inmates represented by her attorneys. That may be because the high school dropout was hit by a truck as a child, suffered a head injury and was stabbed in the head. She suffered from possible brain damage, and in two IQ tests scored 69 and 80. "A resignation usually sets in at this stage, but not with Wanda," lawyer Steve Presson said. But in her life, "normal" and "rational" seldom popped up on Allen's radar screen.

"She was slow," a former classmate said at the Oklahoma City home of Allen's mother. Mary Allen herself is marginally articulate. She sat barefoot in her parlor, crying at the mention of Wanda while a roach tiptoed over a grandchild's sneaker. A relative with Tourette's syndrome--one of several kin with disabilities--called, and the speaker phone broadcast a tirade in which he threatened a member of the defense team. "It's hard to believe," Presson said, "but Wanda Jean is the brain trust of that family."

And the killer. She was convicted of manslaughter in 1981 and sentenced to death for shooting a lesbian lover in 1988. None of her supporters, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson--who was among 28 protesters arrested at Allen's prison--were trying to spring her or dismiss the suffering she has caused two families. They were arguing that under the circumstances, an execution was barbaric.

Allen's attorney in the 1988 case was shocked to learn the state was after the death penalty. He asked the judge for help from the public defender's office because he had never handled a capital case alone and the Allen family paid him only $800, so he couldn't afford investigators. The judge refused, and Allen was convicted without her attorney knowing anything about her IQ or possible brain damage. She didn't have the sense to tell him.

Not that it would have mattered. Oklahoma is one of 13 states that do not prohibit executions of the mentally deficient. Still, Presson argued in last-minute appeals that prosecutors knowingly misled the clemency board when they claimed Allen was a high school graduate and briefly attended college. Prosecutors, who insist that Allen was competent and functional, said Allen herself made those claims at her murder trial. And indeed she did, inexplicably and irrationally damaging her own cause.

Three federal courts kicked aside Allen's plea for mercy last week. Her last best hope was Governor Frank Keating, who was asked for a 30-day stay so the clemency board could reconsider its decision with the benefit of an accurate account of Allen's schooling. Keating denied the request, and Allen was executed by lethal injection Thursday night.

"I'm not for or against the death penalty, but instead of executing her, I'd rather they study people like Wanda and figure out why they kill," U.S. Army Sergeant Greg Wilson told me the day of the execution. He is the brother of Allen's 1988 murder victim.

I happened to sit next to Jackson on the plane out of Oklahoma City. "She wasn't altogether there," he said of Allen, whom he had visited. "My God. We honor Dr. King on Monday and execute on Tuesday and Thursday." He was talking about this week's execution schedule in Oklahoma.

"Capital punishment is a statement of moral outrage and justice sought and received," the Governor said last week. Maybe so. But having executed a woman of marginal intelligence who had shamefully cut-rate trial representation, Bible-belt Oklahoma is no holier. It is no safer. It is no more civil.