USA (Oklahoma): John Hanson droht Hinrichtung

Von August 2000 bis März 2025 befand sich John Hanson in Louisiana im Gewahrsam der Bundesbehörden, um seine lebenslange Haftstrafe wegen bewaffneten Raubüberfalls zu verbüßen. Seine Hinrichtung war bereits einmal zuvor angesetzt worden, und zwar für den 15. Dezember 2022. Damals hatte der Bundesstaat Oklahoma die US-Regierung gebeten, ihn nach Oklahoma zu verlegen. Die Regierung unter Präsident Biden lehnte dies mit der Begründung ab, dass John Hanson seine lebenslange Haftstrafe noch nicht verbüßt habe und "seine Überstellung an bundesstaatliche Behörden zum Zweck der Hinrichtung nicht im öffentlichen Interesse" sei. Am 20. Januar 2025 unterzeichnete Donald Trump kurz nach seinem Amtsantritt ein Präsidentendekret zur Todesstrafe, in dem er unter anderem zusicherte, für den "Erhalt der Todesstrafe in den Bundesstaaten" zu sorgen. Am 5. Februar stellte die Justizministerin klar, dass dies auch bedeute, dass Personen, die in einem Bundesstaat zum Tode verurteilt wurden, sich aber in einem Gefängnis der Bundesregierung befinden, in den jeweiligen Bundesstaat verlegt würden, damit sie dort hingerichtet werden könnten. Am 1. März wurde John Hanson in ein Gefängnis in Oklahoma verlegt. Seine Rechtsbeistände wurden erst nach der Verlegung darüber in Kenntnis gesetzt.

Im Jahr 2016 wurde bei John Hanson eine Autismus-Spektrum-Störung diagnostiziert. Dies erklärt einige seiner lebenslangen Schwierigkeiten, z. B. seine Anfälligkeit für Manipulation durch Dritte. In der strukturierten Umgebung des Bundesgefängnisses hat er sich in den mehr als zwei Jahrzehnten seiner Inhaftierung laut den Gefängnisbediensteten gut entwickelt.

Fortsetzung (Auf Englisch)
The prosecution had forensic and circumstantial evidence against both men, but its theory of the two murders was based on the claim by an informant that John Hanson had said that VM shot the man and Hanson shot the woman. On appeal, John Hanson was granted a resentencing on other grounds. His case was assigned to Tulsa County District Court Judge Caroline Wall. Just before the resentencing was to start in 2005, the prosecution provided John Hanson’s lawyers with evidence that VM had confessed in jail in 2001 to having shot the woman and that in 2003 a police officer had obtained a statement to this effect from the person (AH) to whom VM had allegedly confessed. Judge Wall deemed the evidence credible and sufficient to order that John Hanson receive a full new trial, finding it "creates a reasonable probability that, had it been introduced at trial, it would have changed the outcome". However, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA) overturned her order on technical grounds, and the resentencing went ahead in 2006. John Hanson was again sentenced to death for the murder of the woman. VM, in contrast, was granted a full retrial. In 2008, he was convicted of both murders and received two death sentences. On appeal, VM’s death sentence for the murder of the woman was modified to life without the possibility of parole (LWOP) on a double jeopardy finding relating to sentencing. The second death sentence was remanded because of legal errors, after which the state agreed to a plea deal and a sentence of LWOP for that murder also.

The OCCA, which noted that the informant’s claim about who had shot who was "critical" to the whole case, ruled that the testimony should not have been admitted against VM as it was unreliable hearsay – the reason for VM being granted a retrial. Judge Wall noted that the OCCA detailed "the importance and the defects in [the informant’s] statement". She added that, although the statement was "admissible in Hanson’s case", as it did not implicate the constitutional restrictions on hearsay testimony as it did in VM’s case, "the issues of credibility remain". Moreover, "the first Hanson jury was not instructed on the law" regarding the need for "great caution and requirement of corroboration" in relation to such statements. The informant died before Hanson’s resentencing, but his prior trial statement was read into the record for the resentencing jury without the defence being able to subject it to adversarial testing, and despite the directly contradictory new evidence of VM’s confession. His lawyers described their position as having been "severely hampered" by the informant’s "unavailability", especially given the newly discovered confession evidence. In her report, Judge Wall made clear that she did not think John Hanson’s death sentence was appropriate because of the evidence of VM’s confession and other issues. Although the resentencing jury heard a brief passing reference to the alleged confession, that jury was required only to decide on sentence. In her report, Judge Wall wrote that to "sentence Hanson to death where there was newly discovered evidence that was not presented to the trier of fact on the guilt and innocence (first stage) was troubling to me".

Judge Wall wrote that "on the factual issue of Defendant Hanson’s individual participation in the shooting, it appeared to me that the facts presented in the second trial could support either the State’s or the Defense’s theory of events". She suggested that the constitutional requirement of individualized consideration of culpability in determining sentence had not been met. John Hanson alone faces execution for these murders. Overall, as in the federal prosecution, multiple state juries ultimately found VM more culpable than John Hanson. VM received death sentences for both murders and in each case the jury found all the aggravating factors asserted by the prosecution. While John Hanson was sentenced to death twice, both juries rejected some of the aggravators. In a signed declaration, VM’s wife said that John Hanson "did whatever [VM] told him to do. It was like [VM] had something over him". Knowing VM as she did, she added that she did not believe John Hanson "shot either of those people".