Attorney general to ask for execution dates

Monday, March 20th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Attorney General Drew Edmondson asked the state Court of Criminal Appeals on Monday to set execution dates for a pair of death row inmates whose appeals were rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The high court refused, without comment, to hear the appeals of James G. Robedeaux and Charles A. Foster. Charlie Price, a
spokesman for the attorney general, said the inmates had exhausted their appeals.

"It is the practice of this office, before an execution date is requested, to examine each case to determine if the testing of DNA
evidence should occur," Edmondson said.

"We have determined, after a thorough review of each of the cases, that DNA testing would be of no value in either case, and would have no relevance as to the actual innocence of either Foster or Robedeaux. I see nothing that should stand in the way of these executions being carried out," Edmondson said.

Robedeaux, 50, was convicted in 1986 for the Sept. 22, 1985, dismemberment death of Nancy Rose Lee McKinney, 37, in an apartment
they shared in Oklahoma City. Portions of McKinney's body were found over a three-county area.

Visitors to the apartment noticed stains on carpets and walls as well as terrible odors that Robedeaux said was from spoiled meat.

Foster, 51, was convicted of the 1983 beating and stabbing death of Claude Wiley, 74, in Muskogee.

Wiley, who owned a grocery store, was delivering groceries to Foster's home when Foster beat him with a baseball bat. Foster then took Wiley to a remote area where he stabbed him three times in the chest.

The medical examiner testified that Wiley suffered extensive skull fractures and massive hemorrhaging.

Edmondson, who was Muskogee County district attorney at the time, tried the case.