{"id":205,"date":"2007-09-28T15:27:13","date_gmt":"2007-09-28T15:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2007\/09\/supreme-court-spares-texas-kil.php"},"modified":"2007-09-28T15:27:13","modified_gmt":"2007-09-28T15:27:13","slug":"supreme-court-spares-texas-kil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/09\/supreme-court-spares-texas-kil","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court Spares Texas Killer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Associated Press – September 28, 2007 <\/strong>
\nHUNTSVILLE, Texas – The U.S. Supreme Court halted the execution of a man convicted of killing his parents in the nation’s busiest death penalty state after already agreeing to review another state’s lethal injection procedures.
\nThe high court, which refused a similar appeal earlier this week from another Texas inmate, blocked state corrections officials Thursday night from executing 28-year-old Carlton Turner Jr. The order came less than two hours before the death warrant would have expired at midnight.
\nTurner’s lawyers had linked his case with an appeal from two Kentucky inmates who argued that lethal injection is unconstitutionally cruel. Both states use similar injection procedures employing three drugs.
\nThe justices on Tuesday agreed to consider the Kentucky appeal, and Turner’s case was viewed as a barometer of whether capital punishment in Texas could be placed on hold while the Supreme Court considers that case.
\n“All I can say is all glory to God,” Turner said when prison officials told him of the reprieve.
\nThe brief order made no mention of the court’s reasons for stopping the punishment.
\nIt followed a decision earlier Thursday by Alabama Gov. Bob Riley to stay the execution of a contract killer hours before it was to have been carried out so the inmate could be put to death using a new lethal injection formula the governor had ordered just a day before.
\nTurner would have been the 27th Texas inmate to be executed this year and the second this week.
\nAfter state courts refused to halt the punishment earlier Thursday, Turner’s lawyers went to the Supreme Court.
\nIn their appeal, his lawyers said that if the first of the three drugs failed to knock Turner unconscious “the inmate will experience excruciating pain and torture as the second and third drugs are administered.”
\nThe Supreme Court isn’t expected to rule on the Kentucky case until some time next year.
\nAnother Texas execution is scheduled for next week, one of at least three more set for this year. The status of that case was uncertain in light of Thursday’s developments.
\nIn their response to Turner’s appeal, the Texas attorney general’s office said that unlike the Kentucky case, Turner had a pending execution and the appeal questioning lethal injection was filed the day he was to die.
\nOnly two days earlier, another Texas inmate was executed just hours after the justices announced their intention to review the Kentucky case. Lawyers attributed that execution to the short period they had to prepare appeals for convicted killer Michael Richard. The justices did consider an appeal before turning it down, and Richard was executed after about a two-hour delay.
\nTurner was 19 when he shot Carlton Turner Sr., 43, and Tonya Turner, 40, several times in the head. Prosecutors said Turner had dragged the bodies through the house before dumping them in the garage, then had friends over that weekend for a party.
\nIn Alabama, Riley said he issued the 45-day stay of Tommy Arthur’s execution only to allow time for the new lethal-injection procedures to be put in place. The changes are designed to make sure the inmate is unconscious when given drugs to stop the heart and lungs.
\nRiley said evidence is “overwhelming” that Arthur is guilty “and he will be executed for his crime.” The governor encouraged the attorney general’s office to ask the Alabama Supreme Court to set another execution date “as soon as possible.”
\nAssistant Attorney General Clay Crenshaw said the request would be filed with the court Friday.
\nBefore Riley issued his stay, state officials had said they intended to execute Arthur at 6 p.m. Thursday, even though the changes Riley ordered could not be implemented by then.
\nThey said the procedures already in place were constitutional, though Arthur’s attorney, Suhana Han, contended that Riley’s order to change the protocol amounted to the state conceding that its execution procedure was deficient. Han did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment Thursday.
\nArthur, 65, was sentenced to death for the Feb. 1, 1982, killing of Troy Wicker, 35, of Muscle Shoals. The victim’s wife, Judy Wicker, testified she had sex with Arthur and paid him $10,000 to kill her husband, who was shot in the face as he lay in bed.
\nArthur was visiting with his daughter when he learned of the stay in a call from his attorney, prison system spokesman Brian Corbett said.
\nLike Turner, Arthur had asked the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay pending its ruling on the Kentucky case. The Alabama Supreme Court had declined to grant a stay Wednesday.
\nThe wife of Arthur’s victim was given a life sentence for her part in the murder and paroled after 10 years behind bars.
\nIn a statement, Peter Neufeld, co-director of the Innocence Project, urged Riley to use the next 45 days to allow DNA testing on evidence from Arthur’s trial.
\nAnother lethal-injection lawsuit, filed by a convicted ax murderer on death row on Delaware’s death row, had been scheduled for trial Oct. 9. A federal judge postponed the trial Wednesday, citing the pending Supreme Court case.
\n
\nAssociated Press writer Garry Mitchell in Atmore, Ala., contributed to this report.
\nCopyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Associated Press – September 28, 2007 HUNTSVILLE, Texas – The U.S. Supreme Court halted the execution of a man convicted of killing his parents in the nation’s busiest death penalty state after already agreeing to review another state’s lethal injection procedures. 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