By Associated Press
Montgomery, AL – Lisa Thomas had on brown and tan sneakers when she ended her five-day protest trek from Selma to Montgomery, but she said each step was covered with more than just a rubber sole.
One of more than 50 death penalty opponents who gathered at the Capitol Wednesday, Thomas said she was driven by the faith that they would accomplish a miracle.
She and the other activists were there to plead with Governor Bob Riley to intervene in the execution of 46-year-old Darrell Grayson.
Grayson is scheduled to die tomorrow for the 1980 slaying of Annie Laura Orr, an 86-year-old widow who was robbed and raped before she was killed in her Montevallo home.
The opponents want Riley to stay the execution for 30 days while a DNA test is done. They say the test, which was not available at the time of Grayson's 1981 trial, would erase lingering doubts about his guilt.
Attorney General Troy King, who has asked the Alabama and U.S. Supreme Courts not to delay the execution, said a DNA test won't exonerate Grayson of the murder, which he has confessed to several times.
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)