"AZ death-row inmate files new motion for stay," is the AP report, via KTAR-AM.
Lawyers for a death-row inmate say they have filed an emergency motion with the Arizona Supreme Court to support Thomas Paul West's request for a stay of his execution.
West, 52, is set to be executed by injection Tuesday morning at the state prison in Florence for the 1987 killing of a man near Tucson.
A filing by federal public defender Jon M. Sands and other attorneys say the motion contains new evidence to support the stay request. The attorneys sent the motion via email to The Associated Press late Sunday night.
The emergency motion also follows an appeal with the Arizona Supreme Court on behalf of West and three other death-row inmates over Arizona's execution protocol.
A Maricopa County Superior Court judge on Friday refused to halt West's execution and dismissed a lawsuit filed by lawyers for the four inmates.
The suit contends that Arizona's lethal-injection law delegates policy-making decisions to the executive branch in violation of the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers.
The emergency motion says that new evidence has been uncovered to back up that allegation.
The motion says a Pinal County Medical Examiner report on the autopsy of Eric King, a convicted murderer who was executed on March 29, shows he was injected with sodium thiopental and pentobarbital.
The motion argues that represents a deviation from the Arizona Department of Corrections' protocol on executions, which the motion said doesn't permit injection by both drugs.
In Delaware, the Wilmington News Journal reports, "Execution still in limbo: State judge denies stay, but federal hold remains in place." It's written by Sean O'Sullivan.
A Superior Court judge has denied requests by condemned ax murderer Robert W. Jackson III to delay his execution.
However, a federal stay on Jackson's lethal injection remains in place and has indefinitely postponed the execution, which had been set for July 29.
On Friday, Superior Court Judge Richard R. Cooch dismissed Jackson's arguments that Jackson should get a delay from state courts because of pending and possible federal court action.
Cooch ruled that, as a state judge, he cannot issue a stay at this point because of a possible Jackson appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. If the U.S. Supreme Court chooses to accept Jackson's petition, it can enter its own hold on the execution.
As for Jackson's pending civil case in U.S. District Court, Cooch wrote that he may have authority to enter a stay in that case but will not do so because the federal court is the proper place to make such a request.
Earlier coverage from Arizona and Delaware begins at the links. Related posts are in the lethal injection index.
Comments