McALESTER, Okla. — A man who apologized for killing two men in a drive-by shooting after a nightclub altercation was set to be put to death Thursday in the first execution of the year in Oklahoma and the second in the United States.
Kendrick Simpson, 45, was scheduled to receive a lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary for his convictions in the 2006 killings of 19-year-old Anthony Jones and 20-year-old Glen Palmer, who were fatally shot after a dispute at an Oklahoma City club.
Simpson, who had fled to Oklahoma City from the devastated city of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, admitted to the killings during a clemency hearing last month. He apologized to the victims' families and to a third man who was in the vehicle when Jones and Palmer were shot.
''I apologize for murdering your sons,'' Simpson said at the hearing. ''I don't make any excuses. I don't blame others, and they didn't deserve what happened to them.''
Despite his apology, the state's five-member Pardon and Parole Board narrowly voted to deny Simpson clemency.
And on Wednesday afternoon, the U.S. Supreme Court had no comment as it rejected a late appeal to block the execution.
Simpson's attorneys had argued that he suffered from posttraumatic stress disorder stemming from chronic trauma in his childhood years growing up in a New Orleans housing project.
''Kendrick is a man worthy of your mercy and compassion,'' his attorneys wrote in his clemency application. ''The death penalty is supposed to be reserved for the worst of the worst offenses and offenders. Kendrick and his case represent neither.''
