Moments before he was scheduled to be strapped to the...

Moments before he was scheduled to be strapped to the execution gurney at Oklahoma State Penitentiary, Hung Thanh Le received a governor's reprieve evening. 4 reporters on hand to cover the execution were already in the H Unit law library of OSP, waiting to go to the witness room of the execution chamber, when the governor's call came in shortly before 6 p.m. Le was never moved from the holding cell on H Unit, which houses death row, to the execution chamber, according to Lee Mann, warden's assistant. A Vietnamese refugee, Le was scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. for killing another Vietnamese refugee, Hai Nguyen, with a meat cleaver and kitchen knife in 1992. The governor granted the stay after he was contacted by the Vietnamese embassy, which had requested additional time to study case files for Le. Henry, who denied clemency for Le earlier this month, said he is not reconsidering his decision not to grant clemency but was issuing the stay of execution because he had received a formal diplomatic request. The Le case drew attention after Gov. Brad Henry denied clemency. The state Pardon and Parole Board voted 4-0 last month for clemency and recommended that Le's death sentence be commuted to life in prison. In the years between the time he committed the crime and the time he was tried, Vietnam had opened a consulate in the United States, Henrickson said, yet Le was never granted his rights under the Vienna Convention to contact the embassy. "It seems he should have been given that opportunity sometime before his trial," Henrickson said. The United States and Vietnam did not have diplomatic relations in 1992 and no one was authorized to provide consular assistance to Vietnamese in the United States, according to a letter written to the Pardon and Parole Board by Catherine W. Brown, a legal adviser in the U.S. State Department. Vietnam set up an embassy in the United States in July 1995. While issuing the stay of execution, the governor set a new execution date for March 23.