US Supreme Court won't stop Missouri execution

 

The U.S. Supreme Court refused late Tuesday to halt the pending execution of a Missouri inmate who was convicted of abducting, raping and fatally stabbing a Kansas City teenager nearly 25 years ago.
Michael Taylor, 47, is scheduled for lethal injection at 12:01 a.m. CST Wednesday. The high court
issued its rulings about an hour earlier, shortly after the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied Taylor's request for a rehearing and Gov. Jay Nixon denied a clemency request.
Taylor's execution will mark Missouri's fourth lethal injection in as many months.

His attorneys' argument focused in part on Missouri's use of an unnamed compounding pharmacy to provide the execution drug, pentobarbital. The state, after years of using a three-drug execution method, switched to pentobarbital late last year. State officials say there were no outward signs of distress by three inmates recently executed using a single dose of pentobarbital.

Last week, the Oklahoma-based Apothecary Shoppe agreed that it would not supply the pentobarbital for Taylor's execution — but Attorney General Chris Koster's office said a new provider had been found. The office refused to name the pharmacy, citing the state's execution protocol that allows for the manufacturer to remain anonymous.

Taylor's attorneys said use of the drug without naming the compounding pharmacy could cause the inmate pain and suffering because no one could check if the operation was legitimate and had not been accused of any violations.

"We have no idea about the track record of this pharmacy," Taylor's attorney, John Simon, said ahead of the execution.

Pete Edlund doesn't want to hear it. The retired the Kansas City police detective led the investigation into Ann Harrison's death. Taylor, 47, and Roderick Nunley were convicted of abducting the 15-year-old girl as she waited for the school bus, then taking her to a home where they raped and killed her.

"Cruel and unusual punishment would be if we killed them the same way they killed Annie Harrison," Edlund said. "Get a damn rope, string them up, put them in the gas chamber. Whatever it takes."
Ann Harrison was waiting in her driveway, with her school books, purse and flute, the morning of March 22, 1989. Authorities say Nunley and Taylor, then in their early 20s, drove past in a car they had stolen after a night of binging on crack cocaine. One of the men jumped out of the car and grabbed Ann, forcing her into the vehicle. Both claimed the other did it.

The men drove to the home of Nunley's mother. Ann was forced into the basement and raped — DNA testing linked Taylor to the crime. Afraid she would be able to identify them, the men used kitchen knives to stab the girl repeatedly, even as the girl begged for her life and offered money if they would let her live.

She died about 30 minutes later.
Taylor and Nunley put her in the trunk of the stolen car, abandoned the car in a neighborhood then walked away.

The body was found a day later. Edlund said the crime went unsolved for about six months until a $10,000 reward led to a tip, and Taylor and Nunley were both arrested. Both pleaded guilty and were sentenced to death in 1991. After their sentences were overturned, they were again sentenced to death in 1994.

Taylor's attorneys, in their most recent appeals, had also argued that Taylor's original trial attorney was so overworked that she encouraged him to plead guilty to lessen her own workload.
Missouri could be on pace for a record number of executions in 2014. Last week, the Missouri Supreme Court set a March 26 execution date for Jeffrey Ferguson, convicted of abducting, raping and killing a 17-year-old girl in St. Charles 25 years ago. Several other inmates on death row have also exhausted all but last-minute court appeals and could soon face execution.