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In a brief order entered yesterday afternoon, the Supreme Court allowed the execution of an Alabama inmate to go forward.
The state had asked the court to intervene after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit put the execution on hold; the ruling means that the execution of Jeffrey Borden can proceed as scheduled this evening.
Borden was sentenced to death for the murders of his estranged wife and her father on Christmas Eve 1993. He shot Cheryl Borden in the back of her head in front of their children; he then shot his father-in-law in the back as he attempted to run to safety.
Borden's challenge to his execution has been a common one in death-penalty cases in recent years: He argues that the 3-drug protocol that the state plans to use to execute him violates the Constitution's bar on cruel and unusual punishment.
In particular, he contends, the 1st drug in that protocol - midazolam - will sedate him but cannot guarantee that he will not feel excruciating pain from the drugs that follow.
A federal district court in Alabama dismissed his claims, but the 11th Circuit reversed and ordered the district court to order an evidentiary hearing.
Last week the court of appeals put the execution on hold to give the lower court enough time to consider Borden's claims. That prompted Alabama to go to the Supreme Court on Monday, where it told the justices that "Alabama has already carried out 4 executions using this protocol. Any questions concerning 3-drug midazolam protocols have effectively been answered."
3 justices - Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor - indicated that they would have denied the state's request, leaving Borden 2 justices short of the support that he needed to block his execution.
Source: scotusblog.com, October 4, 2017
U.S. Supreme Court clears Thursday execution in Alabama
The U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday cleared the way for Alabama's planned execution Thursday of inmate Jeffrey Lynn Borden for the Christmas Eve 1993 shooting deaths of his estranged wife and her father in Gardendale.
The U.S. Supreme Court issued an order granting the request of the Alabama Attorney General's Office to vacate the injunction blocking the execution that had been issued by the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals last week. The Attorney General's Office had appealed the 11th Circuit's order to the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday.
In the order from the U.S. Supreme Court 3 associate justices - Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor - said they would have denied the Attorney General's request and kept the injunction blocking the execution in place.
The execution is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.
Borden has been on death row 22 years, and was convicted of the murders of Cheryl Borden and her father Roland Harris. The murders took place at a family gathering in Gardendale on Christmas Eve 1993.
On Tuesday morning attorneys for Borden filed a response to the Alabama Attorney General's Office motion saying the stay of execution should remain in place.
Source: al.com, October 4, 2017
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
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