Cuomo Wants Okla. Inmate Jailed in N.Y. : Justice: Governor says the killer, set for lethal injection Oct. 19, must serve 20-year sentence first. But condemned man says he wants to die.

In a tug-of-war between two states over a condemned man who wants to die, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo said Monday that the convicted killer must serve his New York prison sentence before being executed in Oklahoma.

New York has no death penalty. Cuomo opposes capital punishment, although he told Oklahoma Gov. David Walters in a letter Monday that that wasn’t a factor in his decision.

Oklahoma officials were angered by Cuomo’s response to a federal judge’s ruling Friday that Oklahoma was obligated to return Thomas Grasso but that New York could waive its rights to custody.

“If I were a New York resident, I’d be ashamed and embarrassed,” said Tulsa County Dist. Atty. David Moss, who prosecuted Grasso for strangling an elderly Tulsa woman on Christmas Eve, 1990.

But Cuomo offered a legal option for Grasso, saying a New York judge could modify Grasso’s sentence and allow him to serve it in Oklahoma. Cuomo otherwise would have Grasso serve his sentence in New York.

Oklahoma will either ask the federal judge for a clarification or appeal the entire matter to the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, Oklahoma Atty. Gen. Susan Loving said.

The judge made it clear that New York could waive its rights to the prisoner, and “New York has now concocted a new legal theory which would require Oklahoma to warehouse Thomas Grasso for 20 years, until his New York sentence is complete, before carrying out his execution.”

Grasso, 30, was convicted in New York City of killing an elderly man in July, 1991. He was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. Then, under the rules of an interstate compact regulating such cases, he was sent to Oklahoma for trial.

After his conviction and death sentence, Grasso said he would rather be executed by injection than spend the rest of his life in prison.

Cuomo’s corrections commissioner, Thomas Coughlin, said there was no way under New York law for him to waive a judge’s sentence, so Coughlin suggested that Grasso apply to the New York sentencing judge for a modification.

“I have no moral problem with his wanting to die,” Coughlin said. “But if he wants to die, he’s got to die according to the rules.”

If New York left Grasso in Oklahoma--where he had faced an Oct. 19 execution date--Coughlin said the interstate compact still requires Grasso to carry out his New York prison sentence before being killed.

Grasso, on Death Row in McAlester, Okla., did not immediately return telephone calls seeking comment. His public defender, Johnie O’Neal, said he was appalled New York had acted so quickly without consulting Grasso.