By Associated Press
Washington, DC – The U.S. Supreme Court took no action Monday on whether Alabama death row inmate Thomas Arthur waited too long before challenging the form of lethal injection intended to carry out his execution.
Lower courts said that Arthur unreasonably delayed filing his challenge to the way lethal injection is carried out in Alabama by waiting until just four months before his scheduled execution.
Arthur's execution is set for Thursday.
The issue of time limits is a side issue to a larger debate before the Supreme Court over whether the three-drug form of lethal injection used in many states is so painful that it violates the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
Arthur was convicted in the 1982 murder-for-hire killing of Troy Wicker of Muscle Shoals
The case is Arthur v. Allen, 07-395.
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)