A stay issued by a federal district court earlier this week has been lifted by the 5th Circuit. The ruling in Adams v. Thaler is available in Adobe .pdf format.
"Court order restores scheduled Thursday execution," is Michael Graczyk's AP filing, via the Houston Chronicle.
The execution of a Texas prisoner convicted of a robbery-abduction 10 years ago that left an East Texas man dead was back on schedule for Thursday in Huntsville after a federal appeals court overturned an order that halted the punishment.
Beunka Adams won a reprieve Monday from a federal district judge in Texarkana, but the Texas attorney general's office challenged the ruling as improper, saying the judge had no jurisdiction and the appeal itself was improper. Adams' attorneys contended he had deficient legal help at his trial and in early stages of his appeals.
A three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit agreed with the state Wednesday and overturned Adams' reprieve.
Adams' lawyers asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case. Attorney Thomas Scott Smith said an additional appeal would go to the high court Thursday.
And, this excerpt contains a quote from Cherokee County District Attorney Elmer Beckworth:
Adams was tried for capital murder under the Texas law of parties, which makes an accomplice equally culpable as the actual killer. A fellow inmate in the Cherokee County Jail testified Adams bragged to him that he did the shootings, but Beckworth said evidence from Cobb showed Cobb was the gunman.
Adams execution would be Texas' fifth execution in 2012, the state's 482nd post-Furman execution since 1982. It would be the 243rd execution conducted under the administration of Rick Perry. He became Governor of Texas upon the resignation of George W. Bush in December 2000. 152 men and women were executed in five years under Governor Bush's tenure.
To date, there have been 16 executions in the nation this year; a total of 1,293 post-Furman executions since 1977.
Earlier coverage of Adams' case begins at the link.
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