Alabama scheduled to execute man in '82 murder-for-hire

[webfact]

Alabama scheduled to execute man in '82 murder-for-hire 
KIM CHANDLER, Associated Press

 

ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama man convicted of the 1982 shooting death of a woman's husband in a murder-for-hire arrangement was set to be executed Thursday evening.

 

Tommy Arthur, now 74, was convicted of killing Troy Wicker with a shot through the eye as he slept in his Muscle Shoals home that year.

 

Wicker's wife initially told authorities she had been raped and that an intruder killed her husband, but she later testified she had sex with Arthur and promised him $10,000 to kill her husband. At the time of Wicker's death, Arthur was in a prison work-release program after being convicted of the 1977 murder of his sister-in-law.

 

Arthur's execution time was pushed back at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore as the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed Arthur's request for a stay, officials said. The court granted a temporary stay late Thursday, until further order of the court.

 

Prison system spokesman Bob Horton said the state will wait until Arthur's death warrant expires at midnight to see if the execution can proceed.

 

Juries twice convicted Arthur, but those convictions were overturned on appeal. During his third trial in 1991, Arthur ignored the advice of his attorneys and asked the jury to sentence him to death. He said at the time that he didn't have a death wish, but it was a way of opening more avenues of appeal.

 

Arthur has waged a lengthy legal battle challenging both his conviction and the constitutionality of the death penalty. The Alabama Supreme Court has previously set six execution dates for Arthur, but he won reprieves each time with some stays coming hours before he was set to die.

 

The Alabama attorney general's office in July had asked the court to set an "expedited seventh execution date" after a federal judge dismissed Arthur's latest challenge to state death penalty procedures.

 

Arthur, who has maintained his innocence, sent Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley a four-page handwritten letter requesting a stay of execution, arguing he had never had a fair trial and that potential DNA evidence in the case had not been reviewed.

 

"I'm not guilty and did not have a fair trial in 1991," Arthur wrote.

 

Arthur's attorneys filed two requests Thursday with the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the execution. They argued that Arthur was sentenced under a similar structure that was ruled unconstitutional in Florida because it put too much power in the hands of judges. A judge sentenced Arthur to die after a jury recommended a death sentence by an 11-1 vote.

 

The Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that there were enough differences from Florida to make Alabama's sentencing method constitutional.

 

Arthur's second stay request late Thursday to the U.S. Supreme Court was based on a challenge to Alabama's lethal injection process. His attorneys argued a federal judge misapplied a requirement for inmates to name an alternate execution method and prevented Arthur's lawsuit from moving forward. Arthur suggested a firing squad and another lethal injection drug, but the judge said Arthur had not identified a source for alternate drugs and a firing squad wasn't explicitly named as an allowed form of execution in Alabama law.

 

The Alabama Attorney general's office urged the high court to let the execution go forward.

 

"The prior six execution dates were stayed based on Arthur's long-term manipulation of the federal and state courts through civil litigation and successive collateral attacks," attorneys for the state wrote in a response Thursday with the high court.

 

Wicker's wife, Judy Wicker, served 10 years in prison for her part in the killing, records show.

 

-- © Associated Press 2016-11-04

[webfact]

ATMORE, Ala. (AP) - US Supreme Court has stayed the execution of Alabama inmate convicted of 1982 murder-for-hire

[phantomfiddler]

To my way of thinking, the person who placed the request and paid for the killing should be the one facing the biggest penalty !

[Trouble]

3 hours ago, phantomfiddler said:

To my way of thinking, the person who placed the request and paid for the killing should be the one facing the biggest penalty !

 

Can't disagree with you but my thinking says axe the both of them.

[Rojelio]

How much sense does it make to keep a convicted two-time murderer that has been sentenced to death hanging around in a prison for 34 years; then, decide to execute him at 74 years of age.  So, he's lived a full lifetime at tax payers expense after having killed two people.  Insanity! 

[Scott]

17 hours ago, webfact said:

At the time of Wicker's death, Arthur was in a prison work-release program after being convicted of the 1977 murder of his sister-in-law.

 

9 hours ago, phantomfiddler said:

To my way of thinking, the person who placed the request and paid for the killing should be the one facing the biggest penalty !

 

I think the fact that he already had a murder conviction would have put the death penalty in play.  

[Prbkk]

10 hours ago, phantomfiddler said:

To my way of thinking, the person who placed the request and paid for the killing should be the one facing the biggest penalty !

 

She completed her (very light) sentence and was released from prison 24 years ago: bizarre.

[AhFarangJa]

I guess the people who really benefit are the myriad of lawyers.....Kerching !!

[hawker9000]

A death penalty case just riddled with precisely the type of technicalities the criminal sympathizers just love, and which allow these appeals to go on for decades. The jury voted 11-1, but the judge had too much "power"...  His request for an alternate form of execution wasn't handled properly...  He requested  the death penalty, but only because he knew it would open appeals paths...  So then, when the murderer has done 30 years because of this crap, his sympathizers all madly clamber onto the unfair punishment/how much it all costs bandwagon prattling about how unjust it is to keep a guy in prison so long waiting for the execution and how silly it is to spend so much money on death penalty cases!  You just can't make it up!

 

So now Hillary gets elected and appoints the Supreme Court tie-breaker.  I'll give you one guess which way this case now goes...   This turd will be out of the clink, appearing on Oprah, lecturing us all about "rehabilitation", writing his book, selling the movie rights, and richer than God while we're still trying to crunch our way through next year's tax return.

 

[Credo]

He will never see the light of day, death penalty or not.   

[BlueSkyCowboy]

On 11/5/2016 at 0:30 AM, Rojelio said:

How much sense does it make to keep a convicted two-time murderer that has been sentenced to death hanging around in a prison for 34 years; then, decide to execute him at 74 years of age.  So, he's lived a full lifetime at tax payers expense after having killed two people.  Insanity! 

So we can agree that the murderer is not important, just the money for the lawyers and jailers. We can figure that he cost the taxpayer about 2 million $

 

[boomerangutang]

On 11/5/2016 at 0:30 AM, Rojelio said:

How much sense does it make to keep a convicted two-time murderer that has been sentenced to death hanging around in a prison for 34 years; then, decide to execute him at 74 years of age.  So, he's lived a full lifetime at tax payers expense after having killed two people.  Insanity! 

 

46 minutes ago, BlueSkyCowboy said:

So we can agree that the murderer is not important, just the money for the lawyers and jailers. We can figure that he cost the taxpayer about 2 million $

 

Whether it costs more to execute a convicted criminal or to keep that person on death row forever is debatable.  Either way, it's very expensive.   In NY state, it costs about $68k/yr to keep a person incarcerated.  At Guantanamo, it costs about $900k/yr !     Whenever the US government does (or buys) anything it's always extremely expensive.

[OMGImInPattaya]

Is there a pay-per-view showing this?

[Rojelio]

On 11/5/2016 at 7:56 PM, boomerangutang said:

 

 

Whether it costs more to execute a convicted criminal or to keep that person on death row forever is debatable.  Either way, it's very expensive.   In NY state, it costs about $68k/yr to keep a person incarcerated.  At Guantanamo, it costs about $900k/yr !     Whenever the US government does (or buys) anything it's always extremely expensive.

The world has gone insane.  Proven and convicted murderers do not deserve concessions.  One cheap bullet should be employed.  Cost:  about 20 Baht.