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#Post#: 180--------------------------------------------------
~ Thomas Arthur, 26May17 (AL) ~
DIR By: BuzzC
Date: October 10, 2016, 5:21 pm
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Thomas Arthur execution scheduled Nov. 3--
September 26, 2016
[IMG]
HTML http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z96/BuzzC/Misc/57dac79fbf476.image1.jpg[/img]
MONTGOMERY — A 74-year-old Alabama inmate is scheduled to be
executed in November. He has awaited his just death since he was
Age 41.
Arthur is scheduled to be put to death Nov. 3 for the 1982
murder-for-hire of Muscle Shoals businessman Troy Wicker.
Arthur had been scheduled for execution on six previous
occasions, but was given court-issued reprieves. Alabama asked
for an expedited execution after the judge dismissed his lawsuit
in July.
Alabama is seeking to resume executions after a more than
two-year lull as the state faced a scarcity of lethal injection
drugs and ongoing litigation over the death penalty.
The state in January carried out its first execution since 2013.
Arthur was sentenced to death in 1983 for the Feb. 1, 1982,
contract killing and robbery of Wicker in Muscle Shoals.
On the day of the murder, authorities said, Arthur walked away
from a work release program in Decatur and drove to Muscle
Shoals.
Arthur was in the Decatur facility because he was convicted in
the 1977 shooting death of a woman in Marion County.
Arthur also was involved in the shooting of a Colbert County
guard when he broke out of the jail in 1986, shortly before a
scheduled retrial in Wicker’s shooting.
The guard survived a gunshot wound to the neck.
#Post#: 185--------------------------------------------------
Re: ~ Thomas Arthur, (AL) ~
DIR By: BuzzC
Date: October 20, 2016, 8:13 am
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The Alabama Supreme Court issued an order Sept. 14 setting Nov.
3 as the execution date for the 74-year-old Arthur.
A week after the date was set, Arthur’s attorneys, led by Suhana
S. Han, filed an appeal with the United States 11th Circuit
Court of Appeals attempting to halt the execution once again.
The Alabama Attorney General’s Office has responded to the
appeal. Reports indicate Arthur’s attorneys have until today to
file their response. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals will
decide on the case without oral argument.
#Post#: 187--------------------------------------------------
Re: ~ Thomas Arthur, (AL) ~
DIR By: BuzzC
Date: November 2, 2016, 9:13 pm
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Alabama inmate this week nears execution for the seventh time--
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
Alabama Death Row inmate Tommy Arthur on Tuesday was still
waiting for the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and Alabama
Supreme Court to rule on whether it will grant a stay of
execution.
Arthur is set to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. on Thursday.
If the appeal is granted, it would be the seventh time the
74-year-old's execution has been halted. Six other times, within
days or hours of the appointed time, his execution was stopped.
And other than a month on the lam after shooting a jailer in a
1986 escape, the second oldest inmate on death row has spent the
better part of his last 33 years in a small cell on death row.
Arthur denies he was paid to kill a sleeping Muscle Shoals man,
Troy Wicker, in 1982.
"I didn't no more kill Troy Wicker than you did," Arthur told
AL.com in a recent telephone interview from his cell.
Three different juries in trials in 1983, 1987 and 1991,
however, thought otherwise and found him guilty. The victim's
wife, Judy Wicker, was also convicted of the murder and spent a
decade in prison. She testified at one trial she paid Arthur
$10,000 of the insurance money for the killing. Judy Wicker and
Arthur, who was on work release at the time, were in a romantic
relationship, court records show.
Wicker's family has always felt Arthur was guilty, Janette
Grantham, executive director of the group Victims of Crime and
Leniency (VOCAL) said this week.
"There's no doubt he's guilty," Grantham said. "He deserves to
be held accountable."
"They all called him 'Houdini' because he always seems to slip
away. But hopefully he won't this time," Grantham said.
Efforts to reach members of Wicker's family were unsuccessful.
Grantham, who once worked with victims in the Alabama Attorney
General's Office, said one of Wicker's sisters, Peggy Jones, who
had closely followed the case won't be at the execution because
she is dealing with breast cancer.
"They waited so long for this ... I just hope they can all find
some kind of peace," Grantham said.
Besides seeking a stay of execution, Arthur's legal team is also
appealing to the 11th Circuit to overturn a federal judge's
ruling that denied his claims challenging Alabama's new
three-drug lethal injection combination.
His attorneys on Tuesday also appealed to the Alabama Supreme
Court asking it to vacate or stay his execution. That appeal
challenges the state's death penalty sentencing law as
unconstitutional, saying it is similar to Florida's former law
that was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in January. The
Alabama Attorney General's Office has argued that it isn't
similar and the Alabama Supreme Court in a recent case ruled
that the state's law is constitutional under the Florida ruling.
Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley also has not said whether he would
grant clemency to Arthur, although the governor has yet to grant
clemency for an inmate in the past. Arthur recently wrote
Bentley seeking a stay of his execution, help in getting a new
hearing, and a moratorium on all executions.
If the 11th Circuit denies his request for a stay of execution,
then he could appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, Arthur was moved Tuesday into a holding cell by the
execution chamber.
Here are the highlights of Arthur's case:
-- On Feb. 1, 1982, police found Troy Wicker of Muscle Shoals
shot to death in his bed – a gunshot wound to his right eye.
-- Arthur was convicted of capital murder in 1983.
-- At the time of the Wicker murder, Arthur was serving at a
Decatur work release center for a conviction in the 1977 murder
of his sister-in-law, Eloise West, in Marion County. Having two
murder convictions in that short a span made him eligible for
the death penalty.
-- In 1985, Arthur's conviction in the Wicker case was
overturned because details of the earlier murder had been
introduced at his trial.
-- On Jan. 27, 1986, while awaiting retrial, Arthur escaped from
the Colbert County jail by shooting a jailer in the neck with a
.25 caliber pistol and forcing another jailer to open his cell.
He was caught a month later by FBI agents in Knoxville, Tenn.,
after robbing a bank.
-- Arthur was retried for the Wicker murder in 1987, with the
case moved to Jefferson County because of publicity. He was
convicted, but the conviction was again overturned.
-- Arthur was tried again in Jefferson County and convicted in
1991. That verdict was upheld.
-- Before he was sentenced, Arthur asked jurors to recommend the
death penalty. He said that he did not have a death wish, but
that the sentence would provide more access to appeals. A lawyer
for the state at that time said Arthur "knows how to work the
system."
-- Tuscumbia attorney William Hovater, who was appointed to
defend Arthur after he fired his first two attorneys and later
escaped from the Colbert County Jail, told a reporter after one
trial that he had worked a plea agreement for Arthur to be
sentenced to life without parole, if he pleaded guilty. Arthur
declined. "He never admitted that he did it," Hovater told a
reporter.
Arthur has come close to execution six previous times – within
days or even hours. They include:
-- April 27, 2001. A federal court issued a stay two days before
the scheduled execution because of an appeal that was later
dismissed.
-- Sept. 27, 2007. The day of the planned execution Gov. Bob
Riley granted a 45-day reprieve so that the state could develop
an assessment of whether inmates are unconscious after the first
drug in the three-drug protocol is given.
-- Dec. 6, 2007. One day before, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a
stay pending its decision in a case challenging Kentucky's
method of lethal injection. The court later upheld Kentucky's
method as constitutional.
-- July 31, 2008. Two days before, Arthur filed a petition that
he was innocent based on an affidavit from another inmate that
asserted that the inmate, not Arthur, had killed Wicker. The
Alabama Supreme Court issued a stay to allow investigation of
the claim. A Jefferson County judge later found that Arthur had
helped the other inmate to make the claim and said the two
inmates had tried to defraud the court.
-- March 31, 2012. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a
stay March 28 and ordered the district court to hear Arthur's
claims that Alabama's lethal injection method violated his right
to be free from cruel and unusual punishment and his due process
rights. Alabama later changed its drug combination because one
of the drugs was no longer available.
-- Feb. 19, 2015. Watkins ruled two days before the scheduled
execution that the 2012 stay remains in place and allowed Arthur
to file an amended complaint challenging the new drug protocol.
Current appeal
Arthur's current appeal to the 11th Circuit says the district
court judge improperly denied Arthur's request to amend his
complaint to request the firing squad as an alternative
execution method. When challenging a method of execution,
inmates must suggest another form of execution under a U.S.
Supreme Court ruling. Arthur's attorneys argue that the judge
erroneously ruled that the alternative method must be expressly
permitted by state law.
The judge also rejected Arthur's claim that pentobarbital is a
feasible and readily implemented alternative execution drug. An
Alabama Department of Corrections official testified at Arthur's
hearing earlier this year that the state couldn't find a supply
of that drug.
Among the other arguments, Arthur's attorneys claim that the
judge erroneously rejected their arguments that the first drug
in the lethal injection protocol – midazolam – would cause him
to suffer a painful heart attack before being sedated.
Arthur and his attorneys have also said there was never any
physical evidence, such as fingerprints or DNA, linking him to
Wicker's death. Arthur said that not all the evidence has been
tested that might point to another person.
Arthur also points to Judy Wicker's testimony at her murder
trial in which she claimed a burglar raped her and killed her
husband. Wicker, after her conviction, testified at one of
Arthur's later trials that she had given Arthur $10,000 – part
of the insurance money – to kill her husband.
Arthur and his attorneys say the r*p* kit performed on Judy
Wicker is missing.
Arthur in June asked AL.com to conduct a videotaped in-person
interview at Holman prison. But prison officials said that is
not allowed under the law.
Arthur claimed prison officials and the Attorney General's
Office didn't want publicity. "They don't want a face, they
don't want a personality to reach the public. They want to
portray me as a mad dog foaming-at-the-mouth heathen killer,"
Arthur said in one telephone interview with AL.com. "They don't
want the public to see that I'm a human being, that I'm not an
idiot. They don't want to put what I'm saying with a voice where
the general public can see."
Efforts to reach Arthur's daughter, Sherrie Author Stone, who at
one time had a website for her father to support his appeals,
were unsuccessful for this story.
But she did talk to reporters with the Times Daily newspaper in
Florence for a story on Sunday.
"My heart goes out to the families of those he killed and to the
families of those he injured in some way. I am so sorry for your
loss and pain. I pray you find peace if you have not been able
to. There are probably many others we do not know about," Stone
told the Times Daily.
Stone, who has a brother, also talked to the newspaper about how
abusive her father was to their mother.
"He beat and shot my first stepmother. He beat my second
stepmother, and shot and killed her sister and almost killed her
cousin," Stone told the Times Daily
Source:
HTML http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2016/11/alabama_death_row_inmate_await.html
8)
#Post#: 188--------------------------------------------------
Re: ~ Thomas Arthur, (AL) ~
DIR By: BuzzC
Date: November 3, 2016, 11:23 pm
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Supreme Court stays execution of Alabama man convicted in
murder-for-hire scheme--
Thursday, November 3, 2016
The U.S. Supreme Court has stayed the execution of an Alabama
inmate convicted in a 1982 murder-for-hire.
The court on Thursday night stayed the execution of Tommy Arthur
without comment until further order of the court.
Arthur, 74, had been scheduled to be executed Thursday night by
lethal injection at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.
HTML http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-alabama-execution-tommy-arthur-20161103-story.html
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