An Arizona Prisoner Requests a Delay in His Execution
An Arizona prisoner made a last-minute request to the U.S. Supreme Court to delay his execution scheduled Wednesday for his murder conviction in the 1984 killing of an 8-year-old girl.
Frank Atwood made the request Tuesday after a lower court rejected his arguments that the execution should be called off because his degenerative spinal condition would make it excruciatingly painful for him to be strapped on his back to the gurney he will lie on during the lethal injection.
Atwood’s attorneys also told the Supreme Court in court filings that the aggravating factor that made his crime eligible for the death penalty was invalidly applied. He was convicted in 1975 in California for lewd and lascivious conduct with a child under 14 and convicted of killing Vicki Hoskinson in 1987.
