The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board pictured during a June 17 clemency hearing for Richard Norman Rojem, Jr. (Photo by Kennedy Thomason/Oklahoma Voice)
OKLAHOMA CITY – The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board has scheduled another clemency hearing for a child murderer facing execution later this month. This is the third date the panel has scheduled Kevin Ray Underwood.
Underwood’s clemency hearing is Friday at 9 a.m.
The hearing was postponed while a U.S. Court of Appeals stay from the 10th Circuit was pending as the panel heard his appeal of a lower court’s decision, allowing the clemency hearing to proceed.
The federal appeals court lifted the stay on Wednesday.
Underwood and his attorneys have fought against holding a clemency hearing because the parole board does not have five members. They claim this violates his constitutional rights to a fair trial.
Underwood previously lost his bid for a U.S. district judge, claiming he had a right to have the full five-member board hear his clemency case. He appealed and was granted a postponement of the clemency hearing.
His original Dec. 4 hearing was canceled after two board members resigned. It was reinstated for Monday after Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond objected to the cancellation.
The state argued that fewer than five members were present at previous clemency hearings. In addition, prosecutors argued that there was no state law requiring five members to be present at a clemency hearing.
Governor Kevin Stitt has since appointed a fourth member to the council, Tulsa attorney Susan H. Stava, bringing the number of members to four.
Only three members are expected to attend Friday’s clemency hearing, said Tom Bates, executive director.
It is possible that Underwood could appeal the latest ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.
His lawyers were not immediately available for comment.
Underwood was convicted of the 2006 suffocation of 10-year-old Jamie Rose Bolin. Her partially decapitated body was found in a plastic bathtub in his Purcell apartment.
He confessed that he planned to rape and cannibalize her body.
Underwood will die by lethal injection on December 19 at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.
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