AP reports, "Mississippi execution on after court lifts stay," by Holbrook Mohr.
A federal appeals court panel vacated an order blocking an execution in Mississippi and corrections officials said they were preparing for the lethal injection of death row inmate Edwin Hart Turner at 6 p.m. Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves in Jackson issued an order on Monday that had blocked the execution until Feb. 20. But Attorney General Jim Hood filed an appeal with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
The three-judge panel ruled 2-1 in Hood's favor Wednesday morning and lifted the stay.
Turner's lawyer, James Craig with the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center, had persuaded Reeves to temporarily block the execution after arguing that a Mississippi Department of Corrections policy prevented Turner from getting tests that could prove he was mentally ill when he killed two men during robberies in 1995.
A separate petition was filed last week with the U.S. Supreme Court. That appeal was still pending Wednesday.
That petition said Mississippi is one of 10 states that permit someone who suffered from serious mental illness at the time of the offense to be executed. Turner's lawyers want the court to prohibit the execution of mentally ill people the way it did inmates considered mentally retarded.
Related posts are in the Fifth Circuit and mental illness indexes.
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