MCALESTER, Okla., Dec. 16 (UPI) -- Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating denied clemency for a convicted killer scheduled for execution Tuesday after a thorough examination of the 12-year-old case, a spokesman said Monday.
Ernest Marvin Carter, 36, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection at 6 p.m. Tuesday for the Jan. 28, 1990, murder of security guard Eugene Manowski, who was shot during the theft of a wrecker from an Oklahoma City auto auction.
In November, the Oklahoma Board of Pardons and Paroles recommended clemency for Carter.
Keating and his legal staff met with attorneys from both sides of the case, read the trial transcript, reviewed the evidence, and ordered the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation to reinterview a witness, said Dan Mahoney, the governor's spokesman.
"All of that satisfied the governor and made him confident that Mr. Carter was guilty of the murder and should be executed as per the jury's recommendation," he said.
Carter's defense attorney has said that despite his client's conviction, he was not guilty of the crime beyond a moral certainty. The condemned man claims he is innocent.
Since taking office in 1995, Keating has received four clemency recommendations in death penalty cases but granted only one. In March 2001 he commuted the death sentence of a murderer to life without parole.
Carter's co-defendant, Charles Summers, received a life sentence for a felony murder conviction.
Carter will be the seventh and final convicted killer to be executed this year in Oklahoma.
