DEATH ROW--death penalty in America

[HairOfTheDog]

Michael Taylor ^, who has spent 23 years on Missouri’s death row, makes no claim of innocence. He long ago admitted guilt in the 1989 rape and stabbing of a 15 year-old girl who he and a friend had abducted from a Kansas City-area school bus stop.

But his attorneys argue his execution now will be unduly painful due to the state’s use of unregulated drugs.

His attorney also says it's needless to execute Taylor. “He poses no threat to society,” said John Simon, one of Taylor’s attorneys. “His death would come far too late to have any deterrent effect.”

Today, U.S. District Judge Beth Phillips on refused to halt the execution based on separate claims that Missouri’s one-drug execution method could cause a painful death.

This comes one week after The Apothecary Shop, an Oklahoma pharmacy, decided not to provide the state of Missouri with the drug pentobarbital, which was going to be used in Taylor's execution.

Judge Phillips is still considering another request to delay Taylor's execution again (it was delayed in 2006 over the execution method); Taylor's current attorney filed a claim that his client had an ineffective attorney at his original trial.

If the last appeal is denied, Taylor faces execution at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.

Refs:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/24/lo...ion-drugs/
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/judge-denies...ow-inmate/