By Associated Press
Mobile, AL – On Wednesday, the day before Luther Jerome Williams' scheduled execution, his attorneys are seeking an order from the U.S. Supreme Court to block it and give him time to pursue a constitutional challenge of Alabama's use of lethal injection.
The high court appeal follows a 2-1 ruling yesterday by a federal appeals court in Atlanta not to delay the Birmingham man's execution for a 1988 murder on an interstate in Tuscaloosa County. State's attorneys contend Williams' has exhausted his appeals and the execution should proceed without delay.
Williams, who is 47, is scheduled to die at 6 p.m. Thursday at Holman prison in Atmore. He was sentenced to death for the robbery and shooting death of John Robert Kirk of Gordo on January 23rd, 1988. Kirk was led into the woods and shot in the head and robbed when he stopped his truck along Interstate 59 while driving home from work in Helena.
Williams' attorneys said the inmate filed suit to challenge the constitutionality of Alabama's lethal injection protocols. State's attorneys claim he waited too late to raise the issue.
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)