Oklahoma City – James Lewis DeRosa, a 36-year-old Oklahoma State Penitentiary death row inmate, is scheduled to be executed on Tuesday, June 18, 2013, at 6 p.m. in McAlester.
The announcement was made in April after DeRosa had exhausted all his appeals in Oklahoma.
In October 2001, DeRosa was convicted and sentenced to death for the first-degree murders of Curtis Plummer, 73, and Gloria Plummer, 70, both of Poteau.
According to the Attorney General’s Office, DeRosa’s friend John Eric Castleberry, then 21, agreed to help DeRosa rob the Plummers, along with Castleberry’s friend, Scotty Wayne White, also 21 who agreed to drive the two to the Plummers’ ranch where the murders took place.
Castleberry testified at DeRosa’s trial in exchange for a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. White was charged with accessory after the fact to murder and received two 25-year sentences with the last seven years on probation.
DeRosa has been on death row at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary at McAlester since December 10, 2001.
Three attorneys from the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System (OIDS) were appointed to represent DeRosa: James Rowan, Jason Spanich and James Lockard.
Barring an act of mercy by Gov. Mary Fallin, James DeRosa will be executed by lethal injection at 6 pm, on Tuesday, June 18, at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. He will be Oklahoma’s second execution in 2013, preceded by Steven Ray Thacker on March 12.
“Oklahoma State Prison gears up for yet another state-sanctioned murder,” said Collin Walke, OK-CADP Chair. “As they prepare for the execution of James DeRosa, we send our thoughts and prayers to the families of Curtis Plummer, Gloria Plummer and James DeRosa’s family, and those who must carry out this execution.”
The public is invited to join the members of OK-CADP as they stand in front of the Governor’s mansion, 820 NE 23 St., on Tuesday, June 18, at 5:15 pm during the “Don’t Kill for Me” protest demonstration, which will transition into a silent vigil at the appointed hour of 6 pm until death is pronounced.
Upon DeRosa’s passing, the state will issue a death certificate as it does for every person who dies in Oklahoma. For James DeRosa, the cause of death will be listed as homicide, which is defined as “the deliberate and unlawful killing of one person by another.”
“When someone is executed by the state, she or he is killed in my name,” said OK-CADP member Margaret Cox. “We all hold a responsibility not to let that happen. This action should not go unnoticed by the people of Oklahoma.”
