Death row murderer avoids execution for seventh time in legal battle over 'agonising' injection

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Thomas Douglas Arthur Credit: Reuters

A death row murderer has avoided execution for the seventh time after five US Supreme Court judges granted a last-minute delay.

Thomas Douglas Arthur's legal team argued that Alabama’s death penalty is “excruciatingly painful” and causes “agonising effects”.

Arthur, 74, who claims he is innocent, was convicted of murdering his girlfriend's husband in 1982.

The decision was handed down about an hour before Arthur's death warrant expired on Thursday night, when he was due be executed by lethal injection at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.

Arthur's attorney Suhana Han said: "We are greatly relieved by the Supreme Court's decision granting a stay and now hope for the opportunity to present the merits of Mr Arthur's claims to the court."

But Alabama attorney general Luther Strange added: "With all due respect to the Supreme Court, tonight's order undermines the rule of law.

"While I agree with Chief Justice Roberts that 'this case does not merit the Court's review', in my view, there is no 'courtesy' in voting to deny justice to the victims of a notorious and cold-blooded killer."

Arthur had been on a prison work release programme for a previous murder when he shot Troy Wicker through the eye as he slept.

Judy Wicker, wife of Troy, paid Arthur $10,000 for the murder and told police a black man raped her, knocked her unconscious and shot her husband at their home.

She was sentenced to 10 years in prison for her part in the killing.

Juries twice convicted Arthur, but those convictions were overturned on appeal. During his third trial in 1991, Arthur asked the jury to sentence him to death as it was a way of opening more avenues of appeal.

Limited crime scene testing found no DNA link to Arthur. Alabama lost a rape kit that might have cleared him, his lawyers said.

Arthur's scheduled execution came after three trials and another inmate's confession to the crime. In all, Alabama had scheduled Arthur's execution six times before Thursday.

In 2008, prisoner Bobby Ray Gilbert confessed to killing Wicker but a state court held that Gilbert and Arthur had conspired to submit a fake confession.