Okla. death row inmate executed in shooting death

Michael Bascum Selsor, 57, was pronounced dead at 6:06 p.m. Tuesday at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. Selsor's execution ends more than three decades of legal proceedings in which Selsor was twice convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to die for the Sept. 15, 1975, shooting death of Clayton Chandler.

The 55-year-old Chandler was shot eight times during an armed robbery in which the thieves got away with a little more than $500. Selsor and Richard Dodson, were arrested a week after Chandler's death in Santa Barbara, Calif., where their car with Oklahoma tags had been spotted.

Selsor was originally convicted and sentenced to death following a 1976 trial, in which Dodson was a co-defendant. Later that year, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated Oklahoma's mandatory death penalty statute. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals modified Selsor's sentence to life in prison without parole.

Selsor initiated a new round of appeals challenging his conviction and in April 1996, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out Selsor's murder conviction, as well as two related convictions.