Oklahoma Court Finds Death Row Inmate Unfit for Execution After Bank Guard Murder

OKLAHOMA CITY – An Oklahoma judge has determined that a death row convict is incapable of being killed after receiving psychological evaluations from both defence attorneys and state prosecutors.

Pittsburg County District Judge Tim Mills ruled Thursday that both psychiatrists determined Wade Greely Lay, 63, lacks a “rational understanding” of why he is to be killed. “Given Mr. Lay’s present state of incompetence, the court finds that Mr. Lay may not be executed at this time,” Mills said in an order signed by defence counsel, as well as state and local prosecutors.

Under Oklahoma law, a convict is considered mentally unfit to be executed if they are unable to grasp why they are being executed or that their execution is approaching.

Callie Heller, the defence attorney, said the ruling is a relief.

“Wade firmly believes that his execution is part of a wide-ranging government conspiracy aimed at silencing him,” Heller stated in a statement. Mills ordered Lay to undertake mental health treatment in an attempt to regain his sanity, which Heller believes is unlikely.

“Given the duration and severity of Mr. Lay’s mental illness and his deterioration in recent years, he is unlikely to become competent in the future,” Heller stated. Lay, who represented himself at trial, was convicted and sentenced to death for fatally shooting bank guard Kenneth Anderson in May 2004 while attempting to rob a Tulsa bank with his then-19-year-old son.

Christopher Lay, his son, was condemned to life without parole for his involvement in the attempted heist. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals is expected to give a formal stay of execution within days, according to Phil Bacharach, Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s spokesperson.

“The attorney general is disappointed by the delay, as the family of Kenneth Anderson has waited 20 years for justice to be delivered,” Bacharach stated. “In the meantime, the inmate will receive the treatment necessary so that he can eventually be reevaluated and hopefully deemed competent to pay for his crime,” said Bacharach.

Thursday’s decision marks the second time this year that a court has ruled that an Oklahoma death row inmate is mentally incapable of execution. n March, a separate court ruled that the state could not kill James Ryder, 61, for his role in the 1999 murders of a mother and her adult son.

Michael Dewayne Smith was executed in April in Oklahoma for the 2002 gunshot deaths of two women.

Smith was the first person killed in Oklahoma this year, and the 12th since the state restarted executions in 2021, after a nearly seven-year pause caused by execution issues in 2014 and 2015.

Drummond, the state attorney general, has petitioned the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to establish execution dates for five more condemned inmates, beginning 90 days after Lay’s scheduled execution.