Oken

After a furious legal battle that ended only in his final hour, Steven Howard Oken wrote a letter expressing remorse, smiled with a priest and submitted to his death by lethal injection last night for the 1987 rape and murder of a White Marsh newlywed. Maryland's execution of Oken, a Baltimore County pharmacist's son, at 9:18 p.m., brought chants of "justice has been served" from a crowd of 60 people gathered with relatives of murder victim Dawn Marie Garvin outside the old state penitentiary on East Madison Street in Baltimore.

The Supreme Court cleared the way last night for Steven Oken to be put to death by lethal injection, lifting a federal court order upheld hours earlier that would have indefinitely delayed the convicted killer's execution. Barring another legal maneuver by Oken's attorneys or a grant of clemency from Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., Oken may be executed before midnight tomorrow. The Supreme Court's decision came at the end of a day that began with high hopes for Oken. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Va., had handed him a victory, upholding a federal judge's decision to grant an indefinite stay of execution.

A federal judge had derailed execution plans for convicted murderer Steven Oken, and a final push was needed before a killer could receive an injection of toxins. So the office of one of Maryland's most prominent death-penalty opponents sprang into action. Lawyers working for state Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. rushed legal papers to a federal appeals court in Virginia yesterday, urging the panel to reverse the decision of U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte to stay Oken's execution.

The legal struggle surrounding condemned killer Steven Oken's fate moved at a furious pace yesterday, as a federal judge delayed the execution -- and attorneys for the state promptly appealed so that he may yet be put to death before week's end. A decision from the three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Va., could come as early as today. The judges could let stand the lower court decision to hold further hearings in the case next month. Or they could clear the way for Oken to be executed by lethal injection before his death warrant expires at midnight Friday.

A federal judge said he would rule this morning on convicted killer Steven Oken's bid to delay his execution so his lawyers can argue that Maryland's most recent execution raises doubts about the state's lethal injection procedures. Oken's lawyers said in a hearing yesterday that the state provided them with evidence late last week that there had been a leak in the intravenous line that delivered the anesthetic and deadly chemicals during the execution of Tyrone X. Gilliam in 1998. Lawyers for the state did not deny that a leak had occurred, but asserted that the procedure did not constitute a violation of the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

Steven Oken and his mother talk on the phone nearly every day, and she visits him every week. But in 17 years of conversations about such varied topics as local sports teams and world events, there's a topic that Davida Oken says she hasn't ever broached: the crimes that put her son on death row. "Why bring it up?" she asks. "I have never asked him for details, for an explanation. What good would it do?" Steven Oken, the son of a pharmacist, was 25 years old and married in November 1987 when he raped and killed three women.

Steven Oken was sentenced to death 13 years ago for the rape and murder of Dawn Marie Garvin of White Marsh, and the Maryland Court of Appeals refused Wednesday to delay his execution by lethal injection. If Mr. Oken is put to death, it will be the first execution in Maryland in six years. Mr. Oken is seeking clemency from Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. PEOPLE HAVE asked me whether I am excited about the impending execution of Steven Oken. I tell them no, that I wish I weren't in this situation.

UNLESS HE'S just been blowing a lot of hot air in support of capital punishment over the past decade, Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. should have no problem putting Steven Oken to death. Oken sexually assaulted and murdered three women in 1987, two in Maryland and one in Maine. There are no lingering questions about his guilt, and the family of one of his victims has been actively campaigning for his execution. Even the most dedicated death penalty opponents have a tough time standing up for this guy. So ordering someone on the state payroll to fill Oken's veins with lethal chemicals should be a no-brainer for the Republican governor of Maryland.