In Alabama, Gov. Kay Ivey scheduled an execution date for Casey McWhorter for a 30-hour window between midnight November 16, and 6 a.m., November 17, the Montgomery Advertiser reports. McWhorter was sentenced to death for the 1993 murder of Edward Lee Williams. He was 18 when he was sentenced to death by a jury in a 10-2 vote. He had four accomplices, including the 15-year-old son of the victim, but he was the only defendant sentenced to death.
In Texas, 48-year-old Jedidiah Murphy was killed by lethal injection early this month for the murder of 80-year-old Bertie Lee Cunningham in October 2000, CBS News reported. Murphy was killed after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a federal judge’s order that had been upheld by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, delaying his execution after his lawyers “filed a lawsuit seeking DNA testing of evidence presented at his 2001 trial,” according to CBS.
Also in Texas, Will Speer was granted a stay of execution last Thursday, less than 24 hours before he was scheduled to be killed by the state. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted a stay for Speer, whose attorneys alleged that prosecutors withheld evidence and presented false testimony during his 2001 trial. He also alleges that his trial lawyers failed to provide evidence of the severe physical and sexual abuse he was subjected to as a child. Speer, sentenced to death for the killing of another imprisoned individual, was named the first “Inmate Coordinator for the Death Row Faith-Based Program” just a few months ago by corrections officials.
In Idaho, the Commission of Pardons and Parole agreed to a commutation hearing for Thomas Creech, who was scheduled to be executed on November 8. The commission’s decision, announced in a news release from the Federal Defender Services of Idaho, means his execution date will be postponed. A date for the hearing was not set. “He looks forward to elaborating on the reasons for requesting to have his death sentence commuted to life without parole when the hearing is held,” the statement said. The 73-year-old Creech has garnered broad support for commutation, including from the judge who sentenced him to death 44 years ago. Judge Robert Newhouse said killing Creech now would be “just an act of vengeance” by the state, according to the FDS. Creech has been on the state’s death row longer than anyone else. There are currently eight people on the state’s death row. Idaho’s last execution was in July 2012, when it executed Richard Leavitt by lethal injection.
In Utah, Ralph Menzies, sentenced to death in 1988 for the 1986 kidnapping and murder of Maurine Hunsaker, has exhausted his appeals and will face a hearing this month where a judge is expected to sign his death warrant, the Utah Attorney General announced in a news release. But according to Fox 13, the Utah Board of Pardons & Parole could commute his sentence. In addition, Menzies is one of four others on death row who have filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s execution protocol. Utah’s primary method of execution is lethal injection, but when the drugs aren’t available, it relies on a firing squad to kill its citizens. It’s believed the state does not have the drugs it would need to kill Menzies.
In Oklahoma, Philip Hancock, scheduled to be killed November 30, filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking DNA testing on evidence he maintains could establish that he acted in self-defense, the City Sentinel reports. Hancock was convicted and sentenced to death for killing Robert Jett and James Lynch in 2001. He has always maintained that he acted in self-defense. In his lawsuit, Hancock states that DNA testing of Lynch’s fingernail scrapings and his clothing, as well as Jett’s clothing, wallet, and a letter recovered from the scene would “to prove that Jett and Lynch violently assaulted Hancock immediately before, and then while, Hancock shot them in self-defense.” None of the crime scene evidence has ever been tested. Republican Reps. Kevin McDugle and Justin Humphrey and former Pardon and Parole Board member Adam Luck are asking the parole board to recommend clemency for Hancock, and for Gov. Kevin Stitt to commute his sentence, KOSU reported.
