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Published: May 01, 2008 10:47 am
Is killer sane or insane?
By James Beaty
Senior Editor
Condemned killer Garry Allen spent much of Wednesday afternoon sitting slumped at a table next to his defense attorneys at the Pittsburg County Courthouse, with his head bowed listlessly, seemingly oblivious to his surroundings.
Allen, who wears an eye patch, kept his eye closed throughout much of the proceedings.
However, when the jury took a break and left the courtroom, he suddenly sat up straight, looked around and appeared rejuvenated.
The jurors will ultimately decide whether the Oklahoma State Penitentiary inmate is too insane to be executed by lethal injection.
Testimony in the case wasexpected to resume this morning in District Judge Thomas Bartheld’s courtroom at the county courthouse, where a trial is currently under way to determine whether Allen should be spared the death penalty because of his purported insanity.
Witnesses on Wednesday afternoon included Dr. William Ruwe, a state’s witness who conducted an examination of Allen.
Ruwe said he had conducted conversations with Allen with “a lot of it at a very high level.”
“He talked about things which were philosophical, even theological,” Ruwe said.
“There is pretty good evidence that Mr. Allen recognizes what’s going on around him.”
Allen has already been convicted and sentenced to death by an Oklahoma County jury in the 1986 murder of Lawanna Gail Titsworth.
Having lost all appeals, he had been set for execution at OSP on May 19, 2005.
However, two days before the scheduled execution, then-OSP Warden Mike Mullin sent a letter to then-District 18 District Attorney Chris Wilson in McAlester.
In the letter, Mullin told Wilson that he had been advised following a recent medical evaluation that Allen had “become insane.”
State law required the warden to notify Wilson, and also required Wilson to file a petition in district court asking for a jury trial to determine the question of Allen’s sanity.
Wilson’s office filed the petition the next day — the day before Allen was scheduled to die.
The case has since been wending its way through the court system.
After all the evidence is presented, a jury consisting of 11 women and one man will determine whether Allen is sane enough to be put to death — or, if he has “become insane” and his life should be spared.
Wilson is now with Eastern District of Oklahoma U.S. Attorney Sheldon Sperling’s office.
Attorneys with District 18 District Attorney Jim Miller’s office and Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson’s office are currently representing the state in the Allen trial.
First Assistant District Attorney Richard Hull and Assistant Attorney General Robert Whittaker are serving as state attorneys in the case.
Allen’s defense teams includes attorney John Echols and Vicki Werneke, of the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System.
Since Allen’s attorneys are trying to prove he’s insane, they have the burden of proof in the case.
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