OKLAHOMA CITY — A federal judge has issued a stay of execution for an Oklahoma death row inmate scheduled to die by lethal injection for the death of his 77-year-old great-uncle 16 years ago.
The stay was issued Tuesday just hours before Jeffrey David Matthews was set to be executed. A federal judge in Oklahoma City granted a stay until Oct. 16.
Charlie Price, spokesman for Attorney General Drew Edmondson, says the stay was issued over plans by prison officials to substitute one of the drugs used in the execution process. Price says Matthews' attorneys objected and sought a stay Tuesday morning.
Matthews was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death for the Jan. 27, 1994, murder of Otis Earl Short during a robbery in the victim's McClain County home.