Board recommends clemency for death row inmate

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ The state Pardon and Parole Board recommended clemency Tuesday for a death-row inmate scheduled to die next month. <br><br>Meeting at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester,

Tuesday, November 12th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ The state Pardon and Parole Board recommended clemency Tuesday for a death-row inmate scheduled to die next month.

Meeting at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, board members voted 4-0 to recommend clemency for Earnest Marvin Carter Jr., 36, said Charlie Price, spokesman for Attorney General Drew Edmondson.

Carter is scheduled to die Dec. 17 for the murder of an Oklahoma County man 12 years ago.

Three board members recommended Gov. Frank Keating commute Carter's death sentence to life without parole, Price said. The fourth member, Stephanie Chappelle, said she would submit her recommendation later.

Dan Mahoney, a spokesman for Keating, said the governor will consider the board's recommendation and research the facts of the case before he makes a decision.

``It's a life and death decision,'' Mahoney said. ``He takes it very seriously.''

Carter is the fourth death-row inmate to receive a clemency recommendation from the board since Keating took office in 1995. Keating has accepted only one of the recommendations, for Philip Dewitt Smith in March 2001.

Keating commuted Smith's death sentence to life without parole. It was the first commutation in Oklahoma in 35 years.

Carter was convicted of the January 1990 slaying of Eugene Manowski, a night security guard at an auto auction in northwest Oklahoma City. Manowski was shot in the head.

Carter's defense attorney, Gary Chubbuck of Oklahoma City, argued that in spite of Carter's conviction he was not guilty of the crime beyond a moral certainty, Price said. Chubbock was not immediately available for comment.

Steve Deutsch, an Oklahoma County assistant district attorney who prosecuted Carter, also was not immediately available for comment.