Michael B. Selsor - OK - 5/1/2012

[Hangman1981]

In full representation of my avatar, Oklahoma knows how to


HANG 'EM HIGH!!

[Hangman1981]

So Texas' sidekick Oklahoma follows through. Let's see if the grand daddy of all executions can give us a back-to-backer!

[AnneTheBelgian]

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/336231/20120502/michael-bascum-selsor-executed-oklahoma-clayton-chandler.htm

Michael Bascum Selsor Executed in Oklahoma For The 1975 Murder Of Clayton Chandler

By Michael Billera: Subscribe to Michael's RSS feed

May 2, 2012 11:23 AM EDT

Michael Bascum Selsor was executed by lethal injection on Tuesday in Oklahoma for the murder of a convenience store manager, Clayton Chandler, in Tulsa almost 37 years ago.

At 6:06 p.m. Selsor, 57, was pronounced dead at Oklahoma State Penitentiary. His death ends over three decades of legal disputes that included appeals in an effort to spare his life.

In his last words, Selsor addressed his son and sister. He not mention Chandler's relatives.

"My son, my sister, I love you till I see you again next time," Selsor said, reported the Associated Press. "I'll be waiting at the gates of heaven for you. I hope the rest of you make it there as well."

Selsor was twice convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death for the Sept. 15, 1975 shooting death of convenience store manager Chandler during a robbery gone awry.  The 55-year-old was shot eight times in a heist that only earned Selsor and his accomplice, Richard Dodson, about $500, reported the Daily Mail. Another individual, Ina Morris, was also shot during the incident, but survived.

Selsor and Dodson were arrested a week after Chandler's death in Santa Barbara, Calif., when their car was spotted.

Dodson was acquitted for the murder of Chandler. However, he was convicted for robbery and shooting with the intent to kill Morris. He is currently serving 50 to 199 years in prison, but is up for parole in 2013. 

Selsor said he was prepared for the end as he headed to his execution. As prison officials escorted him out of his cell, the other prisoners began clanging the bars in their cell, as a sign of respect for Selsor, reported the AP.  In the family viewing room, Selsor's son and his sister began to cry.

However, Debbie Huggins, one of Chandler's daughters, said that her family finally received justice for the death of her father.

"Today, we got that justice," she said, according to the Associated Press. "We're glad that it's finally over. Be at peace. The race is finally over."

As she watched Selsor succumb to the lethal injection, she said she could only think about her father.

"This was much kinder what we did to him today than what he did to my dad," Huggins said.

In 1976, Selsor was originally convicted of the crime and sentenced to death. However, the U.S. Supreme Court found Oklahoma's mandatory death penalty statue unconstitutional, reported McAlester News-Capital. Therefore, Selsor's sentence was modified to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

In 1996, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out Selsor's murder conviction and two other charges and was granted a retrial. However, in 1998, Selsor was convicted again of first-degree murder and sentenced to death.

On April 16, the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted 4-1 against amending Selsor's sentence to life without parole, reported the Daily Mail. On Friday, The U.S. Supreme Court rejected his request for a stay of execution.

Selsor's defense attorneys argued that executing him after serving almost 30 years in prison lacked any value and would be "amount to cruel and unusual punishment," reported the Daily Mail.

Tulsa Police Chief Chuck Jordan was a detective working on the case. He arrived on the scene and found Chandler dead on the floor.

"It made quite an imprint on me, what kind of evil really is out there," he told KJRH. "It's very vivid to me today. It was a real big deal.  It paralyzed the city.  There was a lot of fear."

However, before the execution protesters arrived at the Oklahoma state capital in order to express their views about the death penalty.

"I just don't believe in killing people," said Ellen Watson, a nurse who previously worked with adolescent psychiatric patients, reported the Associated Press.

Another protestor, Vince Kish, 70, hoped that people would take notice of the ant-death penalty protests.

"Whether they agree with us or not, at least they can be thinking about it," he said.

Selsor was the third person in Oklahoma to be executed this year Gary Welch was executed in January and Timothy Stemple in March.

However, prison officials have enough pentobarbital, one of the drugs used in lethal injections, for just one more execution. Many drug companies have refused to sell it to states who intend to use it for executions reported newsok.com.






Justice served in Oklahoma God bless the victims and their families Honor and peace for them all


Welcome to Hell rubbish Selsor...





Anne

[Hangman1981]

Use the rope to

HANG 'EM HIGH!

Can't Oklahoma use electrocution or the firing squad if lethal injection is held unconstitutional?

[Grinning Grim Reaper]

Can't Oklahoma use electrocution or the firing squad if lethal injection is held unconstitutional? BOTH! 

Since the resumption of executions in 1990 Lethal injection has been the primary method used for execution. However if lethal injection is to ever be outlawed the state has two secondary options outlined in its state constitution. The first being Electrocution by electric chair which was used before the national moratorium began in 1967, with shooting by firing squad as the second option should both lethal injection and electrocution be outlawed.

It is also interesting to note that:

Oklahoma is one of the leading states in number of performed post-Furman executions, behind only Texas and Virginia and leading in number of executions per capita.

Oklahoma was also the first state and the first jurisdiction in the world to adopt lethal injection as method of executions. 

On December 16, 2010, Oklahoma became the first American state to use pentobarbital in the execution of John David Duty.

[Grinning Grim Reaper]

Lundbeck’s Pentobarbital kills its 53rd patient in Oklahoma on May 1st, 2012

 

By The Pentobarbital Experiment

May 1, 2012 – Lundbeck Executes #53 
 
Lundbeck‘s Pentobarbital kills its 53rd patient in Oklahoma on May 1st, 2012 
 
The state of Oklahoma killed Michael Selsor on May 1, 2012. Almost 37 years after the crime, the state of Oklahoma used its one but last dose of pentobarbital to execute him. In his last statement, he spoke to his family but didn’t address the victims and their families. Soon after the poisons were injected, he breathed heavily a couple of times, and then stopped. He was pronounced dead at 6:06 p.m. Michael Selsor was sentenced to death twice and spent most of his adult life behind bars, he was 57 years old. 
 
Lundbeck & Co are now responsible for 53 out of the 62 executions carried out so far in the United States since December 2010, when Lundbeck stepped in the business of death. 
 
2 new patients await the infamous trio’s treatment in May 2012:
 
Samuel Lopez – Arizona – May 16, 2012
Steven Staley – Texas – May 16, 2012
These patients desperately need their medicine...and Lundbeck is going to give it to them! 

Share this post to raise awareness around you! [color=]Always glad to help out![/color] 

[Hangman1981]

It seems that Oklahoma has a number of "firsts" for the post-Furman era! As Grand Daddy Texas' sidekick, they really are locked n' loaded! 

[Grinning Grim Reaper]

Anatomy of an American Execution

In 2010, while making an episode of Fault Lines on the death penalty in the US, Josh Rushing interviewed death row inmate Michael Selsor. It was the only interview Selsor ever granted. 2 years later, Rushing returned to watch Selsor die. In this special report, he takes an unflinching look at an American execution.

I came to Oklahoma to witness a killing, a homicide in fact.

At a microphone Debbie Huggins fights tears and with a strong southern drawl says slowly, emphatically: "What we did to him today was much kinder than what he did to my dad."

"Him" refers to Michael Selsor and "what" to the murder of Clayton Chandler, a clerk shot 6 times during a gas station robbery in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Selsor pulled the trigger even after Chandler had complied and volunteered the loot.

"In 1975 I never would have thought that it would take 37 years for justice," Huggins says.

Today's justice was delivered about half an hour before Huggins approached the microphone; it is why I am here. The only interview Michael Selsor ever granted was to Al Jazeera's Josh Rushing.

There are few acts graver than when a government takes the life of one of its own citizens. Executions often get a lot of coverage in the US, when there is something controversial about the case or enough people believe the condemned might be innocent. These scenarios attract media attention and fuel vigils. This was not the case with Michael Selsor. Everyone agreed that he did it, including him. The reporters who cover Selsor's execution will focus on Huggins and her family. Perhaps you cannot blame them. The only interview Selsor ever granted was to me.

Even though executions are conducted on behalf of the citizens of the state, very few are allowed to witness it: families of the condemned and their victims, lawyers, law enforcement, and journalists. This is why I felt a responsibility to witness Selsor's end and then to report it as dispassionately and honestly as I could. The following attempts such an account.

About an hour before Huggins gives her statement, I am led from a makeshift media centre to the notorious H Unit, home of Oklahoma's death row. A pat down ensures our escorts that I carry no possessions other than the clothes on my back. They give me paper and a pen so I can take notes. I am joined by five other reporters. We manoeuvre through a set of gates that open to a large passageway. The walls and floor are made of smooth concrete. The passage feels stark, modern, like a secret missile silo - and incongruous with the century-old prison famous for inmate rodeos and executions.

Eventually we turn through a large yellow door into the death chamber's viewing room. I have been here before, but then the space was empty and part of the tour - now it is ready for business.

A handful of prison officials and guards are waiting for us in the viewing room, a narrow rectangle about four times as long as it is wide. A long series of windows to my right are covered by drawn blinds. 2 rows of 12 brown metal folding chairs - the kind dragged out of a storage closet at a school picnic - are lined up. I am the first reporter in the room and told to go to the end of the second row and take a seat.

As I sidestep down the row I notice for the 1st time another set of windows on the left side of the room. The tinted panes conceal the identity of those on the other side. I suppose the setup is not unlike a wedding with two families to attend to and keep separated. The original victim, Clayton Chandler, is represented by an unknown number of family members behind the dark glass. It is hot in the room - at least 90 degrees and rising as people file in. Movement behind the opaque windows catches the light and my eye; at least 2 people are fanning themselves with white paper. Chandler's family members must already be in place, watching us nervously find our seats.

3 lawyers in dark suits representing Selsor enter next and sit directly in front of me. Selsor's family follows. His son wears a grey t-shirt, shorts and a military-short haircut. Tattoos cover his neck and arms. Selsor's sister, with a shock of blonde hair, looks tired. Her bright blue, short-sleeved shirt contrasts a suntanned face, wizened beyond her years. A box of cheap tissues rests in the son's chair, courtesy of the state. Once Selsor's family is settled, a small contingent of law enforcement file in, including Jeff Jordan, who investigated Chandler's murder as a rookie homicide detective. He is now Tulsa's police chief.

A cacophony of banging echoes throughout the prison. We have been warned not to be alarmed by the noise - it is how inmates say their goodbyes.

Selsor is respected on death row. He is seemingly regarded as a serious and contemplative individual who became an asset of sorts to prison inmates and staff alike - though officials always caveat the sentiment with a reminder that his crime was inexcusably wrong and such actions must bear consequences. As the run guy, a job given to the toughest of the condemned, Selsor made deliveries to other cells and kept fellow inmates in line. When school children visited the prison, Selsor played a regular part in the tour. From behind bars he shared his life lesson about the consequences of one's actions with the children.

The appointed time nears and the banging becomes rhythmic - quick at first, but slowing now to a steady, dirge-like pace.

The director of Oklahoma prisons, Justin Jones, who has twice appeared on Fault Lines, enters. The yellow door shuts behind him. Rather than taking a chair, he is handed a phone, a hotline to the governor's office. Though not far from me, I cannot hear what he is saying. Jones hangs the receiver up, picks up a different phone connected with the execution chamber and tells them to proceed.

It is exactly 6 pm local time. The curtain goes up as guards raise the mini-blinds inside the execution chamber. Selsor's family in front of me gasps at the sight of him. He is strapped to the bed with his arms padlocked down and covered in a sheet up to his chest. Selsor's pinched eyebrows convey a look between fear and guilt.

The son waves to his father for what turns out to be the last time and reaches for the tissues. The son and sister begin to cry. Selsor lifts his head as much as he can and turns toward his small audience: "My son, my sister, I love you 'til I see you again next time. Be good. Eric, [Selsor's lawyer] keep up the struggle." His eyes scan the viewing room: "I'll be waiting at the gates of heaven for you. I hope the rest of you make it there as well."

There have been at least 1,121 executions by lethal injection in the US since 1979.

He turns his head toward the prison official standing over him and says: "I'm ready." Relaxing back to the bed, he turns his head to the side and focuses on his son.

Though we cannot see it, we all know what is happening now. 2 intravenous lines run from Selsor's arms to 2 holes in a wall about three feet behind his head. From a hidden room, three executioners each press a plunger sending lethal doses into his veins: one with pentobarbital, another with vecuronium bromide and a third with potassium chloride. The executioners are each paid $300 in cash, so no paper trail leads to their identity.

With a tilted head still looking at his son, Selsor's gaze begins to fade, his eyelids half closing. A final breath exits his body with a visible puff from his lips. His body stills, eyes half open and locked on his son. It is roughly 6:03 pm.

The next 3 minutes pass painfully slowly. No one moves in the death chamber or viewing room. I hear barely perceptible sounds of crying from the row in front of me. A medical examiner in the chamber approaches the bed, checks for signs of life and pronounces Michael Selsor dead at 6:06 pm.

We solemnly return to the media centre. Huggins holds a press conference and tells us that the execution did not bring closure or the kind of justice it seems she was seeking, but it is easy to see her relief from the death of Selsor. The ultimate boogeyman in her mind was finally gone.

In time a death certificate will be issued from the state of Oklahoma. For cause of death, it will say Selsor died from a homicide. Though it took nearly 4 decades to find its target, it is clear now that the trigger Selsor pulled that fateful day in 1975 ended not only Chandler's life, but his own as well.

(source: Truthout.org)

[Russki]

"I'll be waiting at the gates of heaven for you. I hope the rest of you make it there as well"

Heaven does not seem to be a good place to visit if trash like that gets in!

[JTiscool]

I came to Oklahoma to witness a killing, a homicide in fact.

Strange. I was unaware you witnessed Selsor murder someone. Why didn't you testify against him at his trial? 

[Jase]

"I'll be waiting at the gates of heaven for you. I hope the rest of you make it there as well"

Heaven does not seem to be a good place to visit if trash like that gets in!

I am sure he will be standing on the outside looking in!!!!

[Rick4404]

Can't Oklahoma use electrocution or the firing squad if lethal injection is held unconstitutional? BOTH! 

Since the resumption of executions in 1990 Lethal injection has been the primary method used for execution. However if lethal injection is to ever be outlawed the state has two secondary options outlined in its state constitution. The first being Electrocution by electric chair which was used before the national moratorium began in 1967, with shooting by firing squad as the second option should both lethal injection and electrocution be outlawed.

It is also interesting to note that:

Oklahoma is one of the leading states in number of performed post-Furman executions, behind only Texas and Virginia and leading in number of executions per capita.

Oklahoma was also the first state and the first jurisdiction in the world to adopt lethal injection as method of executions. 

On December 16, 2010, Oklahoma became the first American state to use pentobarbital in the execution of John David Duty.

It's not likely that both lethal injection and the electric chair would be declared unconstitutional at the same time. Oklahoma lists the firing squad as a fallback method, but to the best of my knowledge, Oklahoma has never executed anyone by firing squad. It's been by hanging, electrocution or lethal injection.