Wanda Jean Allen (August 17, 1959 – January 11, 2001) was sentenced to death in 1989 for the

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse committed with the necessary Intention (criminal law), intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisd ...

of Gloria Jean Leathers, 29, her longtime girlfriend, in

Oklahoma City Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Oklahoma, most populous city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat ...

. In 2001, Allen was the first black woman to be executed in the United States since 1954. She was the sixth woman to be executed since 1977, after

executions Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...

resumed in the United States. Filmmaker Liz Garbus worked with Allen to chronicle her final appeals and the last three months of her life. These were the basis of the

documentary A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

, ''The Execution of Wanda Jean'' (2002).

Background

Wanda Jean Allen was born on August 17, 1959, the second of eight children. Her mother was an

alcoholic Alcoholism is the continued drinking of alcohol despite it causing problems. Some definitions require evidence of dependence and withdrawal. Problematic use of alcohol has been mentioned in the earliest historical records. The World Hea ...

; her father left home after Wanda's last sibling was born. The family lived in

public housing Public housing, also known as social housing, refers to Subsidized housing, subsidized or affordable housing provided in buildings that are usually owned and managed by local government, central government, nonprofit organizations or a ...

and scraped by on public assistance. At the age of 12, Allen was hit by a truck and knocked unconscious. At 14 or 15, she was stabbed in the left temple. Testing after this found that Allen's abilities were markedly impaired and that her IQ was 69. Also important was damage that resulted in the left hemisphere of her brain being dysfunctional: this impaired her comprehension, her ability to logically express herself, and her ability to analyze cause and effect relationships. Examiners concluded that Allen was more chronically vulnerable than others to becoming disorganized by everyday stresses, and thus more vulnerable to a loss of control under stress. By age 17, she had dropped out of high school.

Death of Dedra Pettus

In 1981, Allen was sharing an apartment with Dedra Pettus, a childhood friend. They had become involved in a lesbian relationship. On June 29, 1981, they got into an argument, and Allen shot and killed Pettus. In her 1981 confession, Allen stated that she accidentally shot Pettus from roughly 30 feet away while returning fire from Pettus's boyfriend. However, the

forensic evidence Forensic identification is the application of forensic science, or "forensics", and technology to identify specific objects from the trace evidence they leave, often at a crime scene or the scene of an accident. Forensic means "for the courts". Hu ...

was inconsistent with Allen's story. In particular, a police expert believed that bruises and powder burns on Pettus's body indicated that Allen had pistol-whipped her, then shot her at point-blank range. But, prosecutors cut a deal with Allen, and she received a four-year sentence in exchange for a guilty plea to a

manslaughter Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th ce ...

charge. She served two years of the sentence. Pettus was buried at Trice Hill Cemetery in

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Oklahoma, most populous city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat ...

Gloria Jean Leathers

By 1988 Allen was living with Gloria Jean Leathers, her girlfriend, in Oklahoma City. The two had met in prison; they had a turbulent and violent relationship. On December 2, 1988, Leathers and Allen got involved in a dispute at a grocery store. A city police officer escorted the two women to their house and stood by while Leathers collected her belongings. Before Leathers left the house, Allen asked her to "stay and attempt to work out their difficulties." When Allen followed Leathers to her car, Leathers grabbed a garden rake, and struck Allen in the face with it. Leathers and her mother left and drove to the Oklahoma City police station to file a complaint against Allen. Allen followed them, later claiming that she was trying to get Leathers not to leave her. When Allen approached Leathers in the parking lot, she saw Leathers still had the rake. Allen returned to her car, grabbed a gun, and, when she saw Leathers closely approaching, fired one shot that severely wounded Leathers. Leathers' mother witnessed the shooting. Two police officers and a dispatcher in the station heard the shot fired, but no police department employee

witness In law, a witness is someone who, either voluntarily or under compulsion, provides testimonial evidence, either oral or written, of what they know or claim to know. A witness might be compelled to provide testimony in court, before a grand jur ...

ed the shooting. Later the police recovered a .38-caliber

handgun A handgun is a firearm designed to be usable with only one hand. It is distinguished from a long gun, long barreled gun (i.e., carbine, rifle, shotgun, submachine gun, or machine gun) which typically is intended to be held by both hands and br ...

near the women's home. They believe it was used in the shooting. Leathers died from the injury three days later, on December 5, 1988. Leathers was buried at Green Acres Memorial Gardens Cemetery, located in Sperry, Oklahoma.

Trial

The state charged Allen with first-degree murder and announced that it would seek the

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...

. Evidence that Leathers had a history of violent conduct, and that she had stabbed a woman to death in

Tulsa, Oklahoma Tulsa ( ) is the List of municipalities in Oklahoma, second-most-populous city in the U.S. state, state of Oklahoma, after Oklahoma City, and the List of United States cities by population, 48th-most-populous city in the United States. The po ...

in 1979, was central to Allen's

self-defense Self-defense (self-defence primarily in Commonwealth English) is a countermeasure that involves defending the health and well-being of oneself from harm. The use of the right of self-defense as a legal justification for the use of Force (law), ...

argument at her trial. Allen testified that she feared Leathers because of her boasting about the 1979 killing. The defense sought to corroborate this claim with testimony from Leathers' mother, whom Leathers had told about the fatal stabbing. But, the prosecution objected. The court prohibited the introduction of such testimony because it was considered hearsay. The prosecutor depicted Allen as a remorseless liar. The jury found her guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced her to death. During the punishment phase, the prosecutors argued that Allen should be sentenced to death because she had been previously convicted of a felony involving the use or threat of violence; that she was a continuing threat to society; and she committed the murder to avoid arrest or prosecution. The jury found that the first two aggravating circumstances existed in Allen's case. Her defense presented numerous mitigating circumstance, including a good relationship with her family, good work habits, and her fear of the victim. In the sentencing phase, the prosecution retrieved details about the circumstances of the death of Dedra Pettus, even comparing that earlier crime to Leathers's death. In a 1991 affidavit, Allen's defense lawyer David Presson stated that after the trial, he learned that when Allen was 15 years old, her IQ was measured at 69, placing her "just within the upper limit of the classification of mental retardation", according to the psychologist who analyzed her. In addition, an examining doctor had recommended a neurological assessment because she manifested symptoms of

brain damage Brain injury (BI) is the destruction or degeneration of brain cells. Brain injuries occur due to a wide range of internal and external factors. In general, brain damage refers to significant, undiscriminating trauma-induced damage. A common ...

. The lawyer stated, "I did not search for any medical or psychological records or seek expert assistance for use at the trial." A psychologist conducted a comprehensive evaluation of Allen in 1995 and found clear and convincing evidence of cognitive and sensory-motor deficits and brain dysfunction, possibly linked to an adolescent head injury. Of the five members of the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, three were appointed by Governor Frank Keating. Keating considered giving Allen a stay based on the narrow issue of whether the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board had enough information regarding her education. Allen's attorneys have pointed to her score, a 69, on an IQ test she took in the 1970s, arguing she was in the range of intellectual disability. Prosecutors said Allen testified during the penalty phase of her trial that she had graduated from a high school and received a medical assistant certificate from a college. But they said that, in fact, Allen dropped out of high school at 16 and never finished course work in the medical assistant program.

Execution

Allen spent 12 years on

death row Death row, also known as condemned row, is a place in a prison that houses inmates awaiting execution after being convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting executio ...

. Her application for clemency was denied. While in prison, she became a born-again Christian. The Reverend Robin Meyers, who served as a spiritual adviser to Allen, is quoted as saying, Allen was executed by

lethal injection Lethal injection is the practice of injecting one or more drugs into a person (typically a barbiturate, paralytic, and potassium) for the express purpose of causing death. The main application for this procedure is capital punishment, but t ...

by the State of

Oklahoma Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...

on Thursday, January 11, 2001 at Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. Twenty-four relatives of murder victim Gloria Leathers and manslaughter victim Dedra Pettus traveled there for the execution. Many of them watched the execution from behind a tinted window. While lying on the execution gurney, Allen said, "Father, forgive them. They know not what they do." She also stuck her tongue out and smiled at her appeal lawyer, David Presson, who had become her friend. He says she was "dancing on the mattress, while they tried to kill her." She was pronounced dead at 9:21 p.m. Relatives of Leathers expressed the execution gave them "closure". She was buried at Trice Hill Cemetery in Oklahoma City.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Allen, Wanda Jean 1959 births 2001 deaths 21st-century executions by Oklahoma American people executed for murder American female murderers Executed African-American people Place of birth missing Executed American women People convicted of murder by Oklahoma 21st-century executions of American people People executed by Oklahoma by lethal injection American people convicted of manslaughter 1988 murders in the United States LGBTQ people from Oklahoma African-American LGBTQ people 21st-century African-American women 20th-century American LGBTQ people Violence against women in Oklahoma