07 April 2021 :
Death sentence set aside for Sonny Boy Oats.
Circuit Judge Steven Rogers issued an order setting aside the death sentence of Sonny Boy Oats, now 63, Black, pursuant to a joint stipulation by the State Attorney's Office and the defense. The stipulation cited Oats' intellectual disability.
The man has been on death row since his February 10, 1981 sentencing.
Oats was sentenced in February 1981 and 1982 — in both Marion and Lake counties for 1st-degree murder, attempted-2nd degree murder and 2 counts of robbery with a gun or deadly weapon, state records show.
Oats has been on death row since he was 23, and has been there for more than 40 years.
Records indicate that Oats robbed a liquor store on Dec. 12, 1979, and shot Eric Slusser, a clerk. Days later, on Dec. 20, he robbed another store, this time shooting and killing another clerk, Jeanette Dyer.
According to Judge Rogers' three-page ruling, since Oats was convicted of crimes that were committed in 1979, the only sentences that the courts could impose at that time were the death sentence or life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years.
With Oats' disability, the only sentence that the court can authorize now is life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years.
http://p2.smu.edu/rhalperi/updates.html
