R.I.P. Michael Selsor

Roman Colosseum lit to protest an execution

Oklahoma executed Michael Selsor on May 1, 2012, for the 1975 murder of Clayton Chandler during a robbery of a convenience store.  Selsor's accomplice is serving a life sentence.
  
What is particularly unusual about this case is that Selsor's original death sentence was reduced to life when the Oklahoma death penalty law was found unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court in 1976.  However, Selsor continued to challenge his conviction, which was eventually overturned by a federal appeals court in 1996, and a new trial was ordered.  Selsor was convicted of first-degree murder at his retrial and sentenced to death.
 
This is the 18th execution in the United States this year, and the third in Oklahoma.