Texas again: Murderer gets stayed.

[RedGlitter]

This SOB murders his parents and then has the audacity to say "Glory to God" when his execution is stayed?! Something's not right about that.


Supreme Court Gives Texas Killer Last-Minute Reprieve

Friday , September 28, 2007



HUNTSVILLE, Texas —
A man condemned for killing his parents avoided the nation's busiest death chamber Thursday night when he won a reprieve from the U.S. Supreme Court, which had already agreed to review another state's lethal injection procedures. Attorneys for Carlton Turner Jr., 28, had appealed to the high court hoping that its planned review of lethal injection procedures in Kentucky, the same process used in Texas, could keep him alive.
Turner was 19 when authorities said he shot Carlton Turner Sr., 43, and Tonya Turner, 40, several times in the head. He then bought new clothes and jewelry and continued living in the family's Irving home.
His case is being watched as an indicator of whether executions in Texas could be halted until the court rules on the Kentucky case next year.
In a brief order, the court said it had granted his stay of execution but made no mention of its reasons for stopping the punishment. The order came less than two hours before the death warrant would have expired at midnight CDT.
"All I can say is all glory to God," Turner told prison officials as he was being returned to death row, in another prison about 45 miles east of Huntsville.
The order followed a decision earlier in the day 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.
Turner would have been the 27th Texas inmate to be executed this year and the second this week.
After state courts earlier Thursday refused to halt the punishment, Turner's lawyers went to the Supreme Court, which on Tuesday agreed to review an appeal from two condemned inmates in Kentucky who argued that the three-drug process used in lethal injection is unconstitutionally cruel. The same procedure is used in Texas.
"The inmate will be forced into a chemical straitjacket, unable to express the fact of his suffocation," the appeal in Turner's case asserted.
Turner's lawyers went early Thursday to his trial court judge with a request to withdraw the execution order. When that failed, they went to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which voted 5-4 to refuse to stop the punishment. The case then went to the Supreme Court.
From death row last week, Turner told The Associated Press he didn't find the prospect of death frightening but was concerned about possible pain from the lethal injection.
"The only thing I worry about is when the process is starting, the suffocation and pain if the anesthesia doesn't work," he said.
In 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.
Riley 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."
Assistant Attorney General Clay Crenshaw said the request would be filed with the court Friday.
Before 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.
They 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.
Arthur, 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.
Arthur was visiting with his daughter when he learned of the stay in a call from his attorney, prison system spokesman Brian Corbett said.
Like 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.
The wife of Arthur's victim was given a life sentence for her part in the murder and paroled after 10 years behind bars.
In 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.
"Gov. Riley said last week that DNA testing was only a tactic to delay this execution. It's not. Now that the execution is delayed for other reasons, DNA testing should be started immediately," Neufeld said.
Another 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.

[Richard Bell]

This SOB murders his parents and then has the audacity to say "Glory to God" when his execution is stayed?! Something's not right about that.

Hey, don't be so hard on him! After all, the guy's an orphan !

[RedGlitter]

[sunny104]

Texas again??

according to that they are waiting on the Supreme Court to review the procedure being used. What's wrong with that?

[RedGlitter]

Originally Posted by sunny104

Texas again??

according to that they are waiting on the Supreme Court to review the procedure being used. What's wrong with that?

Oh sorry Sunny, I forgot you are in Texas. Sheryl too. I put it that way because it seems in the last months, so much screwy stuff has come out of Texas, like there was something in the water. After a while when I'd read about another murder or sad kid story I'd think "Whoa...Texas again, shoulda known!"

As for the procedure, why do they need a review? Either put the guy in Old Sparky or use the needle but the guy shot his parents to death...IMO it doesn't matter if his death comes easily or not.

[Peg]

Originally Posted by RedGlitter

As for the procedure, why do they need a review? Either put the guy in Old Sparky or use the needle but the guy shot his parents to death...IMO it doesn't matter if his death comes easily or not.

AMEN.

[chonsigirl]

I think I am reading it right, it is a 45 day stay? Then they will have to file another appeal, or the execution will go forth.

It is usual for many stays of execution to take place, before the actual event. I am not making a moral comment or anything by this-just saying it sounds like normal procedure. If you look at most death penalty cases, they usually have quite a few stays of execution; some procedural reasons, some stalling tactics by the defense, or political statements by the governor who can sign a stay of execution. They usually have a specific person to pass these orders down, an "execution secretary" is what they used to call them in the old days, I do not know if Texas has one.

[Bryn Mawr]

Originally Posted by chonsigirl

I think I am reading it right, it is a 45 day stay? Then they will have to file another appeal, or the execution will go forth.

It is usual for many stays of execution to take place, before the actual event. I am not making a moral comment or anything by this-just saying it sounds like normal procedure. If you look at most death penalty cases, they usually have quite a few stays of execution; some procedural reasons, some stalling tactics by the defense, or political statements by the governor who can sign a stay of execution. They usually have a specific person to pass these orders down, an "execution secretary" is what they used to call them in the old days, I do not know if Texas has one.

Didn't one guy claim "Cruel and unusual punishment" over the number of says of execution he'd had?

[spot]

Originally Posted by Bryn Mawr

Didn't one guy claim "Cruel and unusual punishment" over the number of says of execution he'd had?

If I remember right, there were no executions in the UK if the condemned was still alive 90 days after sentencing. It was considered too excruciating to extend the period beyond that. If the system hadn't killed the condemned within that period the sentence was turned into an automatic life term. Other countries have a 30-day rule. Justice, if capital punishment qualifies under that term, should not only be done but it should be mercifully swift or it's mere torment.

I absolutely insist that the judicial system never under any circumstances finds anyone guilty who could subsequently be demonstrated not to have committed the crime for which he was sentenced. That is a moral imperative, as is a demand that everyone in the country is equally liable to conviction and that the forces leading to prosecution aren't focused on any specific socio-economic classes. Within that constraint, if a country decides to execute litter louts or people who drive above the speed limit then I'm perfectly content that they do so - it's their country, after all. What they can't do is extend the period on death row to such lunatic periods.

[BTS]

Originally Posted by spot

What they can't do is extend the period on death row to such lunatic periods.

Wow!!!!!
I wonder why in the USA, it takes about 5-8 years to put these murderers out of our hair?

HMMM .... thinkin (...........)
Wondering if the ACLU might have something to do with it or activist lawyers?

I agree 100%, we need to stop their endless frivolous appeals and get on with gettin on.