McALESTER, Okla. — An Oklahoma man, who had offered to be executed by firing squad, was put to death via lethal injection on Thursday morning, officials said.
Donald Anthony Grant, 46, was pronounced dead at 10:16 a.m. CST at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, a state corrections spokesman announced.
Grant was the first person executed in the United States this year and third put to death in in Oklahoma since the state resumed capital punishment after a six-year pause in October last year.
Grant killed Brenda McElyea, 29, and Felicia Suzette Smith, 43, so there’d be no witnesses to his robbery at the La Quinta Inn in Del City in July 2001.
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Grant and another death row inmate, Gilbert Postelle, had asked a federal judge to grant them a temporary injunction that would delay their executions until a trial can be held over whether Oklahoma’s three-drug lethal injection method is constitutional.
They had offered to be killed by firing squad as an alternative, arguing it’d be quicker and less painful.
A trial on the matter is set to begin Feb. 28. But Grant’s scheduled execution was on Thursday at 10 a.m. CST and Postelle’s date with death is set for Feb. 17.
But the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to stay Grant’s execution.
Grant’s death marks the 1,541st execution since the resumption of capital punishment in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
This is a developing story, please refresh here for updates.
David K. Li contributed.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
