Execution Stay Update
By: Import User
Updated: January 7, 2009
With a stay of execution in effect as he sat in a
prison cell awaiting word from the U-S Supreme Court, prison guards
came for convicted murderer Karl Roberts.
Roberts` lawyer says it was an unusual way to treat a death row
prisoner who had just started the federal appeals process.
Craig Lambert says the execution squad intended to escort Robert
to the execution chamber, but another lawyer stopped them.
Roberts was scheduled to be executed last night. His execution
-- four years in the making -- came undone in four hours as he
received a stay of execution that was upheld by a federal appeals
court and the U-S Supreme Court.
Roberts as sentenced to death in 1999 for the kidnapping, rape
and murder of his 12-year-old niece, Andria Nichole Brewer. Since
that date, he has said that he wanted to die for his crimes.
But over the past weeks on death Roberts had several conferences
with attorneys in a cell just 10 feet from another condemned
prisoner, Charles Singleton, who was put to death last night.
Lambert says those meeting caused Roberts to decide to file an
appeal.
Posted by Mike Hellgren
