Oklahoma to execute terminally ill convict

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - Oklahoma is set to execute a convicted murderer by lethal injection on Tuesday who is terminally ill with cancer and is expected to die in a few months' time anyway.

Jimmy Dale Bland, 49, was condemned for the murder of Doyle Windle Rains, whom he shot in the back of the head during an apparent quarrel in 1996.

In a motion filed with the U.S. Supreme Court on Sunday, Bland's attorney, David Autry, said the execution would violate the U.S. Constitution's 8th amendment, which prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment."

Autry said his client's cancer was spreading and was infecting his lungs, adrenal glands and spinal column. He said Bland only had a few months to live.

"It's a sickening spectacle to strap somebody down to a gurney and kill them in the name of the state when they are going to be dead from natural causes. This is about nothing more than naked vengeance," he told Reuters.

Bland has been undergoing chemotherapy treatments.

Assistant Oklahoma Attorney General Seth Branham said that Bland's illness should not thwart the course of justice.

"He claims that because he's got cancer, that's a reason to let him go ahead and live a year or so and die on his own terms. If that's what he wanted, he shouldn't have shot Windle Rains in the back of the head," Branham told Reuters.

If his execution goes ahead as scheduled, Bland will be the second inmate executed in Oklahoma this year.