Are ya'll sitting' down ??? ...[It looks like this is being fast-tracked, so I think it's just a delay then back in the hopper].
Dallas carjacker wins reprieve of execution06:06 PM CST on Thursday, March 4, 2004
HUNTSVILLE, Texas – A condemned inmate described by a prosecutor as an "equal opportunity carjacker" was spared Thursday evening less than an hour before he could have been taken to the Texas death chamber for killing a Dallas-area man who was shot 10 times in the head.
Yokamon Hearn, 25, was facing lethal injection for the 1998 fatal shooting of Frank Meziere, a 23-year-old Plano stockbroker abducted at gunpoint from a self-service car wash in Dallas six years ago.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with defense attorneys who sought a delay in their late appeals and stopped the punishment, but the court also set an accelerated briefing schedule to ensure the appeals would not take months, said Lori Ordiway, an assistant district attorney in Dallas County.
The death warrant would have allowed the execution to be carried out after 6 p.m. although state officials normally wait until all appeals are resolved before moving ahead with the injection.
In the appeal before the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit, lawyers filed late appeals contending Hearn may be mentally retarded.
The U.S. Supreme Court has barred the execution of the mentally retarded.
Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/030504dntexexecution.d4a0f.html
