Wyoming Set to Resume Executions

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — The state’s first execution in more than 26 years is scheduled for next month, and the condemned man’s lawyer said there is little more that can be done to stop the sentence from being carried out.

“We’ve put in 10 years and nothing’s happened,” said Leonard Munker, a public defender for Mark Hopkinson, a convicted murderer. “We’ve reached the end and why lie about it?”

Hopkinson, convicted in 1979 of four counts of first-degree murder and two counts of conspiracy, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection on Jan. 22. He would be the first inmate executed in Wyoming since December, 1965, when a 22-year-old laborer, Andrew Pixley, was put to death in the gas chamber for the rape-murder of a 12-year-old girl.

Hopkinson, 42, is the only person on Death Row at Wyoming State Penitentiary in Rawlins.

U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch had halted Hopkinson’s execution, previously scheduled for Sept. 23, 1990, to review questions surrounding the death sentence and possible new evidence. But Matsch dismissed the appeal last week, saying that most of the claims had been ruled on earlier and the others were insufficient to overturn the sentence.