Lawyers for Inmate to be Executed Tonight Ask SCOTUS for Delay

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) – The Latest on the scheduled execution of (all times local):

12:45 p.m.

An Alabama inmate is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to halt his upcoming execution.

Attorneys for Walter Leroy Moody, Jr. on Thursday asked justices to stay the execution to review whether Moody’s federal sentence of multiple life terms can be interrupted for Alabama to carry out his execution. Moody is scheduled to be put to death Thursday evening by lethal injection.

Authorities said Moody mailed out four package bombs in 1989 including one that killed Robert Vance, a federal judge. The 83-year-old Moody was convicted first in federal court and sentenced to seven life sentences plus 400 years. He was later convicted in state court of capital murder and sentenced to death.

U.S. Attorney Jeff Sessions has told Alabama officials that they can have full custody of Moody to carry out his death sentence.

Moody’s attorneys argued that Sessions, under federal law, cannot interrupt a federal sentence before its completion.

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10 p.m.

A package bomber who created a wave of terror across the South in the 1980s is scheduled to be executed in Alabama.

The execution is set to happen nearly 30 years after Walter Leroy Moody Jr. killed a federal judge with a bomb mailed to his home.

The 83-year-old Moody is scheduled to receive a lethal injection Thursday. Moody was convicted of killing Judge Robert S. Vance.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Moody will be the oldest inmate put to death in the United States in modern times.

Moody was also convicted in federal court of killing a black civil rights attorney from Savannah, Georgia, and mailing a bomb to a civil rights organization.

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4/19/2018 1:06:47 PM (GMT -5:00)