A 12-year-old Tulsa County murder case involving capital punishment issues could soon be on a fast track to retrial.
Lawyers in the Michael Allen Browning case conferred Tuesday in Tulsa County District Judge Rebecca Nightingale's court and will return to court July 8 to make some decisions governed by a federal judge's speed-related order.
In May, an appeals court affirmed a ruling by U.S. Senior District Judge Terence Kern to grant a new trial to Browning, who had been sentenced to die for the murders of a Glenpool couple.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a decision by Kern to overturn Browning's convictions and death sentences, imposed at a 2003 trial, for the murders of Harry and Teresa Hye and a life sentence for the shooting and wounding of their niece. Investigators said Harry Hye, 64; his wife, Teresa Hye, 42; and their niece, Cenessa Tackett, then 21, were shot during a robbery Feb. 18, 2001, before their rural home was burned down.
Tackett, then pregnant with a child who she said was Browning's, was the prosecution's key trial witness. Tackett indicated that Browning's co-defendant, Joel Shane Pethel, shot her and her aunt and uncle after the three were bound with tape and put in a large closet, where she said Browning started a fire.
In 2011, Kern ruled that Browning, 37, was entitled to relief in the form of a new trial based on a pretrial ruling by then-Tulsa County Associate District Judge Deirdre Dexter not to order the disclosure of Tackett's mental-health records. Kern indicated that material was favorable to the defense and should have been available for the defense's use.
In his 2011 order, Kern directed the State of Oklahoma to "commence proceedings to retry" Browning within 180 days.
Kern stayed the effectiveness of that order pending the resolution of the appeal to the 10th Circuit, which is now settled.
The parties in the Tulsa County murder case have the option of asking the federal court for an extension of the 180-day requirement.
Pethel pleaded guilty to the two murders plus other crimes. His sentences include four consecutive life prison terms.
Bill Braun 918-581-8455
bill.braun@tulsaworld.com
Original Print Headline: Case involving death penalty faces retrial
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The plaintiff alleged in a lawsuit that he was made to perform pushups to avoid a ticket or jail.
Hilliard Andrew Fulgham is accused of killing Linda Wright, 45, and Dorothy Lindley, 60, in 2006.
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