13 May 2024 :
May 9, 2024 - Oklahoma. Wade Lay, 63, White, incompetent to be executed
His execution was scheduled for June 6.
An Oklahoma judge has ruled that a death row inmate is incompetent to be executed after the prisoner received mental evaluations by psychologists for both defense attorneys and state prosecutors. Lay has been diagnosed as having schizophrenia.
Pittsburg County District Judge Tim Mills wrote Thursday that both psychologists found that Wade Greely Lay lacks a “rational understanding” of why he is to be executed.
Lay, who represented himself at trial, was convicted and sentenced to death for the May 2004 shooting death of a bank guard when he and his then-19-year-old son attempted to rob a Tulsa bank. Killed in the bank robbery attempt on May 24, 2004, was Kenneth Anderson.
Lay and his son went to rob the bank to fund the purchase of guns for their antigovernment plans. They believed "that the United States Government had become tyrannical and that they had to start a patriotic revolution as was done by America's founding fathers," the Court of Criminal Appeals said in an opinion upholding the father's conviction.
His son, Christopher Lay, was sentenced to life without parole for his role in the attempted robbery.
Lay's legal team said he was severely mentally ill and delusional at the time of the murder, and that the trial judge never had him evaluated by mental health professionals.
The State of Oklahoma will seek a stay of execution.
