Four stays were granted for executions that were scheduled to take place this week in Texas and Georgia, and Oklahoma’s Pardon and Parole Board unanimously recommended clemency for a foreign national facing execution in January 2004. In Texas, courts ordered three stays of execution. Two of the cases involved challenges to the use of pancuronium bromide as part of the state’s lethal injection process. A third case, that of Bobby Lee Hines, was stayed on the basis of a mental retardation claim. Attorneys for Texas death row inmates Billy Frank Vickers and Kevin Lee Zimmerman filed a suit stating that one of the lethal injection drugs, which has been banned by the American Veterinary Medical Association, violates the constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment. The Supreme Court issued a stay for Zimmerman just 20 minutes before his scheduled execution. Vickers’ execution was put off by the state because of uncertainty of how the courts would rule. (Associated Press, December 11, 2003) Pancuronium bromide is used in 28 states that execute by lethal injection.

In Georgia, just hours before the scheduled execution of Eddie Crawford, the state Supreme Court agreed to hear his appeal to have several pieces of possible blood evidence tested for DNA. Attorneys for Crawford stated that the evidence must be tested based on a new law granting inmates greater access to post-conviction DNA-testing. Oral arguments in the case are expected to take place in February. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, December 11, 2003).

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board recommended clemency to Hung Thanh Le, a Vietnamese foreign national on the state’s death row. The Board voted unanimously to recommend relief after hearing Le’s claim that he did not have access to legal help from his embassy after being arrested and accused of murder, and that his original trial attorney failed to consider his client’s post traumatic stress disorder as a possible defense. (The Oklahoman, December 10, 2003).
See Methods of Execution and Clemency.