Oklahoma man’s appeal in slaying of trooper is rejected

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) – The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected the appeal of an Oklahoma man sentenced to death for the fatal shooting of a state trooper on the day after Christmas.

The court on Monday denied without comment the appeal by 45-year-old Ricky Ray Malone that he should’ve been convicted of second-degree murder because he was intoxicated by methamphetamine.

Malone’s attorney did not immediately return a phone call for comment.

Malone was convicted in the December 2003 fatal shooting of Trooper Nikky Green in rural Cotton County.

His death sentence was overturned by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, but he was again sentenced to die and that sentence was upheld.

Prosecutors say Malone was making meth on a county road when Green arrived and the two men fought until Malone took the trooper’s gun and shot him in the head.