A lawsuit challenging Alabama’s lethal injection process has taken an unexpected turn after eight inmate plaintiffs asked to be put to death by the state’s new execution method: inhaling nitrogen gas. The Alabama attorney general’s office and lawyers for inmates submitted a joint motion Tuesday to dismiss the litigation. Lawyers said the inmates’ claims are moot, “because their executions will…
Alabama has executed the oldest U.S. inmate to be put to death in modern times, an 83-year-old man convicted of a federal judge’s mail-bomb slaying. Authorities say Walter Leroy Moody Jr. was pronounced dead at 8:42 p.m. CDT Thursday after a lethal injection. He made no final statement and did not respond when a prison official asked him if…
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…
America’s death row is graying, and that leaves courts increasingly likely to face questions of when it becomes unconstitutionality cruel to execute the elderly and infirm. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case this fall of 67-year old Vernon Madison, who killed an Alabama police officer decades ago but whose lawyers say doesn’t remember the crime because of dementia….
Attorney General Jeff Sessions says the U.S. will give Alabama full custody of a convicted package bomber who killed a federal judge so the state can execute him on Thursday. In a Monday court filing, the Justice Department said it would waive its right to custody of Walter Leroy Moody, Jr. The filing came after Moody argued he should be…
U.S. District Judge Robert Vance, Sr. Killed by a package bomb in 1989. Judge Robert Vance, Jr. tells Alabama News Network he “doesn’t know how to answer” the question of whether or not he has forgiven the man who murdered his father with a mail bomb just before Christmas in 1989. He says he did felt closure in regard to…
Alabama has executed a man who killed his employer at a traveling carnival decades ago and later dropped appeals and asked for the death sentence to be carried out. Authorities say 50-year-old Michael Wayne Eggers was pronounced dead at 7:29 p.m. CDT Thursday after an injection at the state prison in Atmore. Eggers was sentenced to death for his conviction…
The Supreme Court has removed an obstacle to Alabama’s efforts to execute a convicted killer who is in declining health. The justices on Monday unanimously reversed an appellate ruling that had blocked the execution of 67-year-old inmate Vernon Madison. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled that Madison is incompetent to be executed because he doesn’t understand his…
An Alabama inmate who challenged execution drug as cruel is put to death for killing police officer in 1997. Earlier tonight the U.S. Supreme Court lifted the stay of execution for 40-year-old Torrey McNabb. McNabb was pronounced dead at 9:38 p.m. Thursday. McNabb used his last statement to tell his mother and sister that he was unafraid and he cursed…
A man convicted of killing three people during the 1994 robbery of an Alabama fast-food restaurant was put to death by lethal injection. Authorities say 46-year-old Robert Melson was pronounced dead at 10:27 p.m. CDT Thursday at a southwest Alabama prison. The execution was the state’s second of the year. State prosecutors said Melson and another man who used to…
