Chicago organization asks Guinn to stay execution

Wednesday, July 14, 2004 | 9:42 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A Chicago organization called Citizens Alert is asking Gov. Kenny Guinn to cancel the execution of Terry Dennis. Dennis is scheduled to die July 22 for strangling a woman in a Reno motel.

In its letter, the organization argues that Dennis is mentally ill and the state should not be helping him to commit suicide.

Keith Munro, Guinn's legal advisor, said the governor had not yet received letter. The governor has the power to grant a 60-day reprieve but only the state Pardons Board can change the sentence, Munro noted.

He said he asked the state Attorney General's Office on Monday for the entire record of the case so the governor could decide whether to convene the pardons board, consisting of the governor, the attorney general and the seven members of the Nevada Supreme Court.

Dennis, 57, has shunned further court appeals and said he wants to die rather than spending the rest of his life in prison.

Despite his wish, Reno attorney Karla Butko has asked the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to intervene and stop the execution. She filed the appeal after it was denied July 6 by U.S. Chief District Judge Philip Pro who said Dennis was mentally capable of making the decision for himself.

The state Attorney General's Office will file its answer to Butko's appeal on Thursday, officials said.

Dennis pleaded guilty to the March 1999 murder of Ilona Straumanis, 56, and was sentenced to death by a three-judge panel. He and Straumanis met at a bar in Reno about three to four days before the killing and they continued drinking in Dennis' motel room.

According to court records, Straumanis told Dennis he was too kind to kill anybody. He then began strangling her with a belt, raped her then choked her to death with his hands.

Dennis called police and admitted he had been drinking heavily before the slaying and had stopped taking the medication prescribed for his mental health problems.

In the Citizens Alert letter, Elizabeth Benson writes that Dennis had admitted himself to the mental hospital two months prior to the murder and admitted to having thoughts of killing a young girl. The organization says the hospital "found his behavior very alarming, yet kept him there for only eight days." Citizens Alert says the hospital should have kept him longer.