Texas proceeds with execution of rapist, murderer
Pending judgment in a case from Kentucky, the U.S. Supreme Court has imposed an informal moratorium on the death penalty. Texas managed to bag this one on a technicality:
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Michael Richard on the phone: Gotta go. |
The legal chaos that played out in the hours before [Michael] Richard’s execution emerges in interviews with defense lawyers and state officials, along with court and prison documents.
As defense attorneys raced to finish last-minute appeals, they were derailed by maddening breakdowns of their computer system. Then, with the execution scheduled for 6 p.m., the state’s highest criminal court decided not to extend its office hours past 5 p.m. — blocking Richard’s attorneys from asking the state court to delay the execution until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Kentucky case.
Just before Richard’s scheduled execution time, defense attorney Greg Wiercioch says, the Texas attorney general’s office gave him an ultimatum: The state would give Richard’s lawyers six minutes to file a final appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, or it would move forward with the lethal injection. [Emphasis added.]
Oh, by the way, in 1986 Michael Richard broke into the home of a Houston nurse, whom he raped and shot to death.