“The prior administration's refusal to transfer Inmate Hanson to state custody to finally carry out a decades-old death sentence is the epitome of subverting and obstructing the execution of a capital sentence,” Drummond wrote Thursday in his letter to Danon Colbert, the Bureau of Prisons' acting regional director.
Hanson, 60, whose name in Oklahoma court records is listed as John Fitzgerald Hanson, was sentenced to death in Tulsa County, Oklahoma, after he was convicted of carjacking, kidnapping and killing Mary Bowles, 77, after he and an accomplice kidnapped the woman from a Tulsa shopping mall.
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond requested the transfer Thursday of inmate George John Hanson, citing President Donald Trump's sweeping executive order this week that directs the U.S. Department of Justice to more actively support the death penalty.
Drummond's predecessor, John O'Connor, previously sought Hanson's transfer and sued the Bureau of Prisons in 2022 after it refused to turn over the inmate to state custody during President Joe Biden's administration.
Oklahoma's top prosecutor asked the federal Bureau of Prisons to transfer an inmate to state custody so that he could be executed for his role in the kidnapping and killing of a 77-year-old woman in 1999.
