ST. LOUIS — The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday granted a stay of execution for Michael Anthony Taylor and agreed to hear arguments in his case.
Just hours before Taylor was to be executed, the appeals court voted 9-1 Wednesday to grant his petition for a rehearing by the full court.
A few hours later the U.S. Supreme Court refused to overrule the appeals court and lift the stay.
Earlier Wednesday, the Supreme Court had rejected Taylor’s appeal that argued that Missouri’s death penalty system is racist. Taylor is black and his victim was white.
“The death penalty as practiced in the state of Missouri discriminates against African-Americans such as (Taylor), such that it is a badge of slavery,” the justices were told in a filing by Taylor’s lawyer, John William Simon.
Before Wednesday’s vote by the full 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis, a three-judge panel of that court had denied Taylor’s request for a stay of execution, although one of the three judges dissented.
The 8th Circuit’s decision to hear the case gives Taylor at least a temporary reprieve.
Phone messages seeking comment from prosecutors in the state’s case were not returned Wednesday.
Taylor, 39, of Kansas City, and his co-defendant, Roderick Nunley, 40, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, forcible rape, armed criminal action and kidnapping for the March 1989 killing of 15-year-old Ann Harrison.
Taylor and Nunley have said they had been using drugs and wanted to steal Harrison’s purse when they got the girl into their stolen vehicle. Taylor raped Harrison in Nunley’s mother’s basement. Fearing she would identify them, the two men killed the teenager.
Both were sentenced to death in 1991. After their sentences were overturned, they were again sentenced to death in 1994.
The Missouri Supreme Court is expected to set an execution date soon for Nunley.
As I read the article, the Supremes rejected one appeal claiming that the death penalty was racist. This is an appeal claiming that the method of execution construes cruel and unusual punishment. The court of appeals granted a stay to allow him to pursue his appeal; the Supremes declined to overturn the court of appeals.
Considering the fact that the Supremes have already accepted a case dealing with the same issue, it is not that unusual that they might allow the appeal to proceed in the appeals court while they hear the Florida case.
I don't see this as dispositive of any particular view on the death penalty or any other issue on Alito's part.
"such that it is a badge of slavery"
Sounds like if the guy's lawyer can get him off he'll start going for reparations for what happened to the killer's great great grand pappy!
So the appeals court wants to hear the case and the SCOTUS is letting them. I don't see what the controversy is here, really.
More people going out of their way to feel miserable, I guess. We win - but they want to insist that we lost because they have no other existence but misery - real or imagined. Beyond pathetic. Oh well, I'm off to bed.