John Moritz at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram has, "Condemned Arlington killer wins stay of execution."
Heliberto Chi, condemned for the 2001 killing of an Arlington clothing store manager during an after-hours robbery that left another man wounded, won a stay of execution Tuesday when Texas' highest criminal appeals court ordered a hearing on whether the use of lethal injection inflicts undue suffering.
The ruling was handed down without a formal vote just after the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected Chi's plea for clemency. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to review claims that lethal injection violates the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
"I think we can now have a substantive debate on the manner in which we execute people in Texas," said Houston attorney David Dow, one of the lawyers seeking to spare Chi from the execution that had been scheduled for Wednesday evening in Huntsville.
Dow of Houston, represents the Honduran government, and Wes Ball represents Chi. They noted in separate filings to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that the U.S. Supreme Court last week blocked the execution of Texas inmate Carlton Turner because the justices were preparing to consider whether any pain inflicted by three-drug lethal cocktails violates the constitution ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
The injections are used by most states that allow capital punishment.
The attorneys also pointed out that 10 states so far have suspended the practice of lethal injection amid concerns that the process masks intense suffering because one of the drugs paralyzes the condemned inmate in the minutes leading up to death. Texas, which leads the nation in the number of executions year in and year out, has no plans to suspend the use of lethal injection.
"Texas' absence from the list of 10 is glaring," Dow said in his brief submitted to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
Comments