NEWS STORY: Oklahoma death penalty case stirs new religious opposition

c. 1999 Religion News Service UNDATED _ Less than a week after papal intervention saved the life of a Missouri killer, Roman Catholic and Jewish leaders and others have become involved in another death penalty case in Oklahoma, where a death row inmate is scheduled to die early Thursday (Feb. 4) for three murders he […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ Less than a week after papal intervention saved the life of a Missouri killer, Roman Catholic and Jewish leaders and others have become involved in another death penalty case in Oklahoma, where a death row inmate is scheduled to die early Thursday (Feb. 4) for three murders he committed when he was 16.

Unlike the Missouri case, in which Pope John Paul II made a successful personal appeal to Gov. Mel Carnahan to spare the life of Darrell J. Mease, who killed three people in 1988, the pontiff has not involved himself in the Oklahoma case of Sean Sellers.


However, Oklahoma’s two Roman Catholic prelates have urged Gov. Frank Keating to stay Seller’s execution for 60 days, the most Keating may do under Oklahoma law. A national Jewish group, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Tuesday (Feb. 2) also asked Keating to delay Seller’s execution.

Carol Davito, secretary to Oklahoma City Archbishop Eusebius J. Beltran, said that two weeks ago the Catholic leader sent a letter to Keating expressing general opposition to capital punishment and asking the governor to intervene in Sellers’ case.

Bishop Edward J. Slattery of Tulsa has also asked Keating to act, saying in a statement that”in America today we cannot morally justify the execution of a criminal behind bars.” Amnesty International _ citing Sellers age at the time of his crimes _ has also asked Keating to stay the execution. The Reform Action Center also emphasized Sellers’ age at the time of his crimes.

The Washington-based center noted that unlike 191 other nations, the United States has not ratified the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child, which prohibits the use of the death penalty against those who commit capital crimes before they are 18.

A spokesman for Keating, who is Catholic, reaffirmed Tuesday that the Republican governor would not intervene. Under Oklahoma law, only the state’s Pardon and Parole Board may commute a death sentence. Last week, the board voted 5-0 to deny Seller’s request for clemency. The Oklahoma governor is only allowed to grant a one-time 60-day stay in death penalty cases.”His feeling is there is room within Catholic teaching for the death penalty in the most egregious of cases, and that this case meets that standard,”said Keating spokesman Dan Mahoney.

In 1986, at age 16, Sellers killed his mother, stepfather and, in a separate incident, an Oklahoma City convenience store clerk. Sellers said that at the time of the murders he was under the influence of Satanism. Since then, he maintains, he has become a Christian.

Monday, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals rejected Sellers’ request for a stay. His lawyers have also asked the U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City to stay the execution, arguing that the state’s clemency process and procedures denied Sellers due process.


The federal court was due to consider the motion Wednesday (Feb. 3) _ hours before Sellers is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 12:01 a.m. Thursday at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Okla.

In Missouri, Carnahan, a Democrat and Southern Baptist who supports the death penalty, bowed to the pope’s request to spare Mease, 52,”because of a deep and abiding respect for the pontiff and all that he represents.”Mease will instead spend the rest of his life in prison without possibility of parole.

John Paul has repeatedly spoken out against the death penalty, which he says runs counter to Catholic teachings concerning respect for all life. Opposition to the death penalty, the pope said during his visit to St. Louis last week, holds”even in the case of one who has done great evil.” Jewish religious teaching also generally opposes the death penalty, said Dr. Mendell Granchow, president of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America. However, as with Catholics, the opposition to capital punishment by Jewish leaders is not shared by the community’s rank and file.

A 1997 American Jewish Committee survey found 80 percent of American Jews support the death penalty. About three-forths of all American Catholics back capital punishment, according to Monsignor Francis Maniscalco, a spokesman for the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Surveys have found similar support for the death penalty among all Americans.

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