*Update* The Associated Press is reporting that the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to stop tonight’s scheduled execution of Jonathan Green, clearing the way for it to proceed. This will be the 10th Texas execution in 2012.
Previous post:
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has lifted the stay for Jonathan Green, reinstating today’s execution hours before it was scheduled to be carried out. Green was convicted of the abduction, rape and strangling of Christina Neal in 2000.
The state attorney general’s office had asked the 5th Circuit to overturn the stay of execution granted earlier this week by a federal judge. According to the Associated Press (“Texas set to execute man convicted in girl’s death,” October 10, 2012):
The appeals court said it found the procedures at Green’s competency hearing were not improper, that no Supreme Court precedents were violated and that it was reasonable to find Green competent for the death penalty.
“We conclude that the state court applied the correct standard and the (federal) district court abused its discretion in finding otherwise,” the three-judge panel ruled.
Green’s lawyer, James Rytting, said his client hallucinated about the “ongoing spiritual warfare between two sets of voices representing good and evil.”
But Green told a psychiatrist who examined him before the hearing that he didn’t and couldn’t have killed Neal, that false evidence was used against him, and that he understood a murder conviction could result in him receiving an injection that would kill him.
Green is scheduled to be executed tonight, Wednesday evening in Huntsville. His lawyers have appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Please stay tuned for further developments on the TCADP home page and Facebook.
For more information:
http://www.kbtx.com/home/headlines/Execution-Stay-Lifted-for-Montgomery-Co-Man-173501331.html
5th Circuit Opinion: http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions%5Cpub%5C12/12-70031-CV0.wpd.pdf