Citations:
Lafevers v. State, 819 P.2d 1362 (Okl. Cr. 1991).
LaFevers v. State, 897 P.2d 292 (Okl. Cr. 1995).
LaFevers v. Gibson, 182 F.3d 705 (10th Cir. 1999).
LaFevers v. Gibson, 208 F.3d 226 (10th Cir. 2000).
LaFevers v. Gibson, 238 F.3d 1263 (10th Cir. 2001).

Internet Sources:

Oklahoma Department of Corrections

Oklahoma Attorney General

10-31-2000 - W.A. Drew Edmondson, Attorney General - Execution Date Requested For Loyd Lafevers

Attorney General Drew Edmondson today asked the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to set an execution date for death row inmate Loyd Winford Lafevers. Lafevers was previously scheduled to be executed March 9 for the murder of 84-year-old Addie Hawley in Oklahoma City. That execution was stayed March 8 pursuant to an order from the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver which allowed Lafevers to file a second petition for writ of habeas corpus. Lafevers claimed that DNA evidence could produce substantial evidence of innocence.

On July 31 the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals extended the stay, "until November 1, 2000, or until a ruling on the application is made in the district court, whichever first occurs." Lafevers filed his application Sept. 15 and yesterday Federal District Judge Tim Leonard dismissed the petition, thereby dissolving the stay and prompting Edmondson to file today's request. "There has been much legal wrangling in the case of Loyd Lafevers," said Edmondson. "The fact remains that the DNA evidence will not produce evidence of actual innocence because, regardless of the outcome of the tests, the results would not negate or even minimize Lafevers' guilt."

Both Lafevers and co-defendant Randall Cannon confessed to participation in the crime, but each said the other was the more active participant. Hawley was abducted from her northwest Oklahoma City home at about 10 p.m., June 24, 1985, and found later that night lying nude and incoherent in a vacant lot some 21 blocks north of her house. She died at Baptist Hospital in the early morning hours of June 25. She had been badly beaten and more than 65 percent of her body had been severely burned. Lafevers and Cannon were tried jointly and each was convicted and received the death penalty for Hawley's murder. Those convictions were reversed on appeal, but Lafevers and Cannon were retried separately in 1993, found guilty and again sentenced to death.

"Loyd Lafevers brutally beat and burned a helpless 84-year-old woman and left her to die," said Edmondson. "He was twice convicted and sentenced to the death penalty for his crime. This new round of appeal has accomplished only delay and more pain for Ms. Hawley's family."

Death Penalty Institute of Oklahoma

Loyd Winford Lafevers, 35, was pronounced dead at 9:19pm. He was executed by the state via lethal injection at Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. Lafevers, an Oklahoma County death row inmate, was sentenced to death for the June 24, 1985, murder of Addie Mae Hawley, 84. Randall Cannon was also sentenced to death for her murder.

Lafevers was scheduled to be executed last March, but received a stay in order for DNA testing to be performed. Lafevers was the seventh Oklahoma inmate to be executed this year and the 37th since executions resumed in the state in 1990. Oklahoma had the highest per capita execution rate in the country last year and is leading the nation again in 2001.

According to prosecutors, Lafevers and Cannon went to Hawley's house to rob her at approximately 10:00pm on June 24. They then decided to kill her because she had seen their faces. Hawley was taken from her house in the trunk of a car to a deserted street and set on fire. She died at a hospital at about 5:25am on June 25. She had burns on over 60% of her body.

Lafevers and Cannon were tried together in 1986 and sentenced to death. That conviction was overturned by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals because the men were denied separate trials. Both were subsequently retried in 1993 and again received death sentences.

Clemency Denied on January 29

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board held a clemency hearing for Lafevers at on Monday, January 29, 2001 -- one day before his scheduled execution. The board voted 4-0 to deny clemency. Since reinstatement of the death penalty in Oklahoma, the board has never voted to recommend clemency.

On March 7 the US 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered US District Judge Timothy Leonard, Western District, to grant a stay of execution to Loyd Winford LaFevers. On the morning of March 8, Judge Leonard issued a 90-day stay of execution. LaFevers had been scheduled to be executed at 12:01am on Thursday, March 9. Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson immediately filed an emergency request with the US Supreme Court asking them to vacate the stay of execution. On the evening of March 8 they denied Edmondson's request. LaFevers' clemency hearing had been scheduled for 10am on March 8. However, do to the stay of execution the hearing was delayed. The state Pardon and Parole Board recessed three times to await the high court ruling, and finally decided to adjourn until March 21st.

The earliest that a new execution date for LaFevers can be set is 60 days from the time his 90-day stay of execution ends. Edmondson said, "When the appeals are exhausted, we will ask for another execution date. It will be another 60 days. I fully expect Loyd LaFevers will be executed in the fall of this year."

ProDeathPenalty.Com

Addie Hawley isn't around to tell the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board who kidnapped her from her Oklahoma City home, beat her so badly her dentures were knocked from her mouth, doused her with gasoline and set her on fire. But defense attorneys for death row inmate Loyd Lafevers hope that new DNA test results will convince the board Wednesday that Lafevers wasn't the one who beat and killed the 84-year-old woman. His attorneys may concede Lafevers was involved in robbing Hawley but not in her murder, which Oklahoma County Assistant District Attorney Lou Keel called the worst he'd seen in the close to 100 murder cases he's worked in nearly two decades.

The DNA results are also the basis for a stay of execution request to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. A federal judge on Friday denied such a request, saying he didn't have jurisdiction. Defense attorneys also want unidentified hairs found at the crime scene tested, according to court documents. Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson said recent DNA tests of blood from a pair of jeans used as evidence in Lafevers' trial only show that the prosecution's theory was flawed. There is ample evidence to put Lafevers at the scene as an active participant in the murder, he said. Lafevers broke into Hawley's house, helped put her in the car, filled receptacles with gasoline used to douse her and gave her well-worn wedding ring to a stripper shortly after the murder, Edmondson said.

Lafevers was 19 with a 10th-grade education in June of 1985. After Lafevers' car broke down, he and Randall Eugene Cannon, 25, went to the Hawley's home and kicked in the front door. She attempted to escape but was brought back to the house, which was ransacked. Hawley was taken to another site in the trunk of her car, beaten and set on fire. Hawley was found still alive but died a few hours later. She had burns on more than 60 percent of her body. Prosecutors alleged she had been raped and sodomized. Lafevers was acquitted of the rape and sodomy charges, according to court documents.

Lafevers and Cannon each blamed the other for Hawley's murder. Lafevers had said that he didn't know until the next day that Hawley had been killed. "By then I thought I had talked him into just letting her out, so I run up the street to watch down another street to see if any cars was coming and I thought he was just going to let her out there," Lafevers said in a June 27, 1985, statement. According to Lafevers, after he left, Cannon burned the car and then the pair went drinking. When the pair were tried together in 1986, it took a jury less than two hours to convict. A successful appeal brought the pair new separate trials in 1993 with the same results. Defense attorneys will say the evidence against Lafevers comes down to state's exhibit 83, a bloodied pair of jeans taken from Cannon's home. "The pants were the only direct physical evidence relied on by the state to support the allegation Mr. Lafevers was a direct participant in the murder of Addie Hawley," Catherine Burton, one of his trial attorneys, said in a Feb. 10 affidavit. Recent DNA testing showed blood on the jeans belonged to Cannon and another unidentified person. Prosecutors had originally contended that Hawley's blood was on the jeans. Federal defender Patrick Ehlers Jr. was assigned the case on Jan. 7 after the attorney representing Lafevers failed to meet an appeal deadline, resulting in a request for an execution date. Ehlers successfully won a court order for the tests. Edmondson also had his own tests done. In closing arguments at Lafevers' 1993 trial, both prosecutors mentioned the pants. One told the jury to conclude that they belonged to Lafevers and were bloodied when he was beating Hawley shortly before she was doused with gasoline and set on fire.

"The prosecutor left an inference with the jury that turned out to be inaccurate," Edmondson said. "That doesn't mean (Lafevers) is innocent." Jurors were given options. One was first-degree murder with malice aforethought, meaning Lafevers planned the murder or was a participant, Edmondson said. "If you are in on planning and encouraging and supplied the materials and someone else goes to Oklahoma City and blows up the building, it doesn't matter who set the match," Edmondson said. "You are a principal and you are just as guilty as the guy who did it." The jury also could have convicted Lafevers of felony murder, in which a person dies accidentally as a result of another felony. A conviction on either charge can bring a death sentence. "A jury is less likely to give the death penalty to someone sitting in a car passed out drunk rather than doing the actual killing," said Oklahoma City attorney Jack Fisher. Fisher, who was not speaking in reference to a particular case, represents Cannon, whose appeal is at the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. Fisher says the recent DNA results don't implicate his client in Hawley's murder. "It's his blood, not the victim's," Fisher said.

UPDATE: One of two men who tortured, bludgeoned, then set fire to a Colorado senator's 84-year-old aunt in Oklahoma 15 years ago won't be executed this morning. Loyd Lafevers came within hours of death before winning a stay Tuesday from the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on the basis of new DNA findings. The state of Oklahoma tried to vacate the stay so the execution could continue by filing an emergency application with the U.S. Supreme Court. But the high court denied the request Wednesday. The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, decided unanimously Wednesday to adjourn Lafevers' clemency hearing until March 21. The delay was solidified when U.S. District Judge Tim Leonard postponed today's scheduled execution for 90 days. "We're just hoping for more time," said Lafevers' sister, Kim Lafevers. "I'm trying to be optimistic, but I don't want to be let down. He's my big brother, just thinking of him dying is treacherous."

Colorado State Sen. Ken Chlouber, whose aunt was the murder victim, had a different view of Lafevers. "This guy will go to hell, and that's the place for him," the Leadville Republican said Tuesday after he was excused from legislative work to attend Wednesday's clemency hearing and witness today's scheduled execution. Lafevers, 34, was sentenced to death for the 1985 murder of 84-year-old Addie Hawley, who was kidnapped, beaten and set on fire. The appeals court ordered the stay Tuesday after recent DNA findings contradicted evidence used by prosecutors in Lafevers' trial. Recent DNA tests show that blood found on a pair of pants was not Lafevers' but his co-defendant's, Randall Eugene Cannon. Chlouber came to the hearing to speak on his aunt's behalf. "This is a surprise. I would have thought the Oklahoma Attorney General's Office would have been more prepared," he said. "Every day this guy is living has been an injustice." UPDATE: The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals set Jan. 30 as the execution date for death row inmate Loyd Winford Lafevers. It is the 2nd execution date that has been scheduled for Lafevers, whose March 2000 execution was stayed so he could pursue appeals on the basis of DNA evidence. Attorney General Drew Edmondson requested a new date a day after U.S. District Judge Tim Leonard rejected Lafevers' appeals based on a claim that new DNA tests on a pair of jeans used as evidence in his trial actually contained the blood of his co-defendant. Prosecutors alleged at the trial that the blood belonged to murder victim Addie Hawley, 84, of Oklahoma City. The woman was abducted, beaten and set on fire in 1985. "I am pleased the court has marked what should be the end of Lafevers' attempts to delay the punishment given him by a jury of his peers," Edmondson said. "I have said repeatedly from the beginning, Loyd Lafevers is guilty of the murder of Addie Hawley and warrants the punishment assessed by the jury," he said.

Lafevers and Randall Cannon, the co-defendant, were tried and convicted and given the death penalty, but their convictions were reversed. They again both received the death penalty in separate trials in 1993 and both are on death row. The 10th Circuit gave Lafevers a stay in March, 32 hours before he was to be executed. In July 2000, the state Court of Criminal Appeals said new DNA evidence showed nothing to overturn the conviction. The presence of no blood of Lafevers or the victim showed at most that the jeans had no relevance in the case. "It does not show Lafevers did not commit the crimes, and we do not find that the jury might have returned a sentence of less than death based on this evidence," the court said. The 10th Circuit had granted a stay until Nov. 1, or until a ruling on Lafevers' appeal in federal court. Execution dates are scheduled in January for seven other Oklahoma death row inmates, and an execution date has been requested for another who has chosen to waive his appeals. Colorado state Sen. Ken Chlouber, nephew of the murder victim, said Lafevers' execution was long overdue. "This guy has fouled Oklahoma with every breath since he murdered my aunt," said Chlouber.

The Lamp of Hope (Associated Press & Rick Halperin)

January 30, 2001 OKLAHOMA - A 35-year-old man was executed by injection Tuesday night for killing an 84-year-old woman by beating her and setting her on fire. Loyd Lafevers and co-defendant Randall Cannon were accused of kidnapping Addie Hawley on June 24, 1985. They locked her in the trunk of a car and took her to a remote area, where they beat her, doused her with gasoline and set her and her car on fire. She was found near midnight lying nude and incoherent. She died the following day.

Attorney General Drew Edmondson said the attack on Hawley was part of a "reign of terror in south Oklahoma City" in which the 2 men attacked 3 other women. Lafevers did not deny taking part in the kidnapping and a burglary of Hawley, but blamed the killing on Cannon, who is also on death row. Cannon blamed Lafevers. They were convicted in a joint trial and given the death penalty, but the conviction was overturned when an appeals court ruled the 2 should have been tried separately. They were tried again separately, convicted in 1993 and again sentenced to death.

Colorado state Sen. Ken Chlouber, nephew of the murder victim, said Lafevers' execution was long overdue. "This guy has fouled Oklahoma with every breath since he murdered my aunt," said Chlouber.

Lafevers becomes the 7th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Oklahoma and the 37th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1990. Lafevers becomes the 11th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 694th overall since America resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

Canadian Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday set Jan. 30 as the execution date for death row inmate Loyd Winford Lafevers. It is the 2nd execution date that has been scheduled for Lafevers, whose March execution was stayed so he could pursue appeals on the basis of DNA evidence.

Attorney General Drew Edmondson requested a new date on Tuesday, a day after U.S. District Judge Tim Leonard rejected Lafevers' appeals based on a claim that new DNA tests on a pair of jeans used as evidence in his trial actually contained the blood of his co-defendant. Prosecutors alleged at the trial that the blood belonged to murder victim Addie Hawley, 84, of Oklahoma City. The woman was abducted, beaten and set on fire in 1985. "I am pleased the court has marked what should be the end of Lafevers' attempts to delay the punishment given him by a jury of his peers," Edmondson said. "I have said repeatedly from the beginning, Loyd Lafevers is guilty of the murder of Addie Hawley and warrants the punishment assessed by the jury," he said.

Patrick J. Ehlers Jr., an assistant federal public defender, said Lafevers intends to appeal Leonard's ruling to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Ehlers filed a petition with the state Court of Criminal Appeals saying that Edmondson's request for an execution date was premature because of the continuing litigation. Lafevers and Randall Cannon, the co-defendant, were tried and convicted and given the death penalty. But their convictions were reversed. They again received the death penalty in separate trials in 1993 and both are on death row.

The 10th Circuit gave Lafevers a stay in March, 32 hours before he was to be executed. In July, the state Court of Criminal Appeals said new DNA evidence showed nothing to overturn the conviction. The presence of no blood of Lafevers or the victim showed at most that the jeans had no relevance in the case. "It does not show Lafevers did not commit the crimes, and we do not find that the jury might have returned a sentence of less than death based on this evidence," the court said.

The 10th Circuit had granted a stay until Nov. 1, or until a ruling on Lafevers' appeal in federal court. Execution dates are scheduled in January for seven other Oklahoma death row inmates, and an execution date has been requested for another who has chosen to waive his appeals.

(Source: The Oklahoman)

Associated Press

"Convicted Killer Executed in Oklahoma," by Danny M. Boyd.

McALESTER, Okla. (AP) -- A 35-year-old man was executed by injection Tuesday night for killing an 84-year-old woman by beating her and setting her on fire. Loyd Winford Lafevers was the seventh Oklahoma inmate executed this month. Another execution is planned Thursday at Oklahoma State Penitentiary.

Lafevers and co-defendant Randall Cannon were accused of kidnapping Addie Hawley on June 24, 1985. They locked her in the trunk of a car and took her to a remote area, where they beat her, doused her with gasoline and set her and her car on fire. She was found near midnight lying nude and incoherent. She died the following day.

Attorney General Drew Edmondson said the attack on Hawley was part of a ''reign of terror in south Oklahoma City'' in which the two men attacked three other women. Lafevers did not deny taking part in the kidnapping and a burglary of Hawley, but blamed the killing on Cannon, who is also on death row. Cannon blamed Lafevers. They were convicted in a joint trial and given the death penalty, but the conviction was overturned when an appeals court ruled the two should have been tried separately. They were tried again separately, convicted in 1993 and again sentenced to death.

Colorado state Sen. Ken Chlouber, nephew of the murder victim, said Lafevers' execution was long overdue. ''This guy has fouled Oklahoma with every breath since he murdered my aunt,'' said Chlouber.