The Associated Press
HUNTSVILLE, Texas – A Texas death row inmate received a reprieve from execution about 90 minutes before he could have been put to death Tuesday after lawyers questioned the legality of the state’s lethal injection procedures.
Executions had been on hold while the U.S. Supreme Court considered a similar challenge to injection procedures in a Kentucky case.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals halted the execution in October of condemned inmate Heliberto Chi on the same issues, that lethal injection procedures were unconstitutionally cruel. And although the Supreme Court ruled six weeks ago the Kentucky injection method was constitutional and cleared the way for executions to resume nationally, Texas’ highest criminal court hasn’t ruled in the Chi case, one of two Texas capital cases with similar claims.
“If they’ve got these cases up there, it really just kind of violates basic legal principles” to hold executions, said David Dow, one of the lawyers who filed the late appeal in Mr. Sonnier’s case.
Mr. Sonnier, 40, declined to comment from a small holding cell just a few feet from the death chamber. He was returned to death row, about 45 miles to the east at a prison near Livingston.
“I respect the court’s decision,” said Roe Wilson, a Harris County assistant district attorney who was handling Mr. Sonnier’s case and sought the execution. “This is a terrible offense. I feel for the victims’ relatives, and I hope this is an issue that is resolved soon.”
It was not immediately clear how Tuesday’s outcome will affect the other 13 executions scheduled in Texas in the coming months. Those include two from the Dallas area: Karl Chamberlain, who is set to die next week for the 1991 rape-slaying of a Dallas woman, and Charles Hood the following week for the 1989 slayings of two people in Plano.