Stay halts Oklahoma execution record

January had been expected to see a record number of executions

A man due to die by lethal injection in Oklahoma on Thursday, the first of a record eight executions scheduled in the state this month, has won a last-minute stay.

Robert William Clayton, convicted of a murder in 1985 was granted a 30-day stay after lost evidence in his case was found in Tulsa County District Attorney's office.

Wanda Jean Allen is due for execution next week

However, next week the state is due to execute convicted murderer Eddie Leroy Trice and Wanda Jean Allen, who will become the first black woman to be put to death in the US for nearly 50 years.

Eight executions in one month would have been a record for Oklahoma, and would have matched the modern US record held by Texas for May and June 1997.

State officials said that the heavy execution schedule was a matter of chance.

"It is just the way their appeals ran through the system," said Charlie Price, spokesman for the state attorney general's office.

Shorter appeals process

Five of the condemned inmates have been on death row for more than 11-years, but reforms of the appeals process have also contributed to the high number.

Execution schedule

9 January - Eddie Leroy Trice, convicted of 1987 rape and murder

11 January - Wanda Jean Allen, convicted of 1988 murder

16 January - Floyd Allen Medlock, convicted of 1990 murder

18 January - Dion Athanasius Smallwood, convicted of 1992 murder

23 January - Mark Andrew Fowler, convicted of 1985 robbery and murder

25 January - Billy Ray Fox, convicted of 1985 robbery and murder

30 January - Loyd Winford Lafevers, convicted of 1985 rape and murder

Next Thursday, Wanda Jean Allen is set to become the first black woman to be executed in the United States since 1954 and the first woman put to death in Oklahoma since 1903.

Her supporters, who include civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, argue that she should not be put to death because she has an IQ of 69, making her borderline mentally retarded.

Oklahoma does not have a law protecting the retarded from execution.

Oklahoma is staunchly pro-death penalty, but the high numbers of scheduled executions in January and a national re-examination of death penalty errors has prompted opponents to speak out.

State leaders of Catholic, Episcopal and United Methodist faiths have called for a death penalty moratorium.

More than 3,700 people in the United States are waiting on death row.

In all, 683 people have been executed, including 85 in 2000, since the US Supreme Court lifted the moratorium on the death penalty in 1976.