Oklahoma AG drops appeal in state death penalty case

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor says he is dropping his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in the first-degree murder case of death row inmate Shaun Bosse.

O’Connor said on Friday that he made the decision after a state appellate court ruled the high court’s decision in a landmark tribal sovereignty case does not apply retroactively. As a result of that ruling, Bosse’s conviction and sentence were reinstated earlier this week.

Bosse, who is not Native American, was convicted in the 2010 killings of Katrina Griffin and her two young children, who were Native American, on land within the Chickasaw Nation’s historic reservation.