AG to determine if death row inmate wants to continue appeals

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- The Oklahoma Attorney General will determine if an inmate wants to continue appeals of his death sentence.

Attorney General Drew Edmondson asked for an execution date in October after James Malicoat indicated that he didn't want to go on with the appeals. Shortly after Malicoat's execution had been set for Feb. 20, the Attorney General's Office was informed that his attorney had filed the appeal.

Malicoat was convicted in Grady County in the February 1997 death of his 13-month-old daughter. She died as a result of head and internal injuries.

In another death penalty case, a Tulsa County judge ruled that condemned murderer Robert William Clayton should have independent testing on evidence that was found on the eve of his scheduled execution.

District Judge Linda Morrissey granted a motion by defense attorney James Hankins, who plans to submit some items of physical evidence to an out-of-state laboratory for forensic testing, a court official said.

Clayton was supposed to have been executed last Thursday for the 1985 murder of Rhonda Kay Timmons in Tulsa.

But Lt. Gov. Mary Fallin last granted Clayton a 30-day stay of execution after items of evidence that had been missing were found in a property room maintained by the Tulsa County District Attorney's Office.

Fallin directed the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation to perform tests on the evidence, but Hankins wanted it done by another lab. Morrissey granted that request.