Man who stabbed horse trainer executed

Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

FILE - This handout file photo provided by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections shows Johnny Dale Black. Black, who is convicted of killing prominent horse trainer Bill Pogue in 1998, is scheduled to be executed Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2013. (AP Photo/Oklahoma Department of Corrections, File)

Oklahoma on Tuesday executed a 48-year-old man convicted of the 1998 stabbing death of a horse trainer.

Johnny Dale Black was pronounced dead at 6:08 p.m. Tuesday at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. He was the second inmate executed by the state in the past two weeks and the sixth put to death in Oklahoma this year.

Black was convicted of first-degree murder for fatally stabbing Bill Pogue, 54, during a roadside attack that left Pogue with 11 stab wounds, broken ribs and punctured lungs. Pogue's son-in-law, Rick Lewis, was also attacked. Lewis suffered more than a dozen wounds but later recovered.

At a hearing before the state Pardon and Parole Board last month, Black begged forgiveness for his actions. But he insisted that he was merely trying to defend his brother, Jimmy Black, from Pogue. The brothers had approached Pogue and Lewis after mistaking their car for that of someone else they had been searching for.

The victim's family did not make a statement after the execution. But Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt said Black was sentenced to death by a jury of his peers "for the murder of an innocent grandfather and upstanding member of the community."

Pogue's relatives and friends had petitioned the board last month to carry out the execution instead of commuting Black's death sentence to life in prison without parole.

Black was previously convicted of manslaughter for the 1984 death of Cecil Martin, 49. Black served nine years of a 15-year sentence in that case.

The Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty said it was planning a demonstration and then a silent vigil outside the governor's mansion Tuesday night to protest the execution.