Alabama executed death row inmate Tommy Arthur on Thursday night after a lengthy court battle that included multiple lethal injection delays.
Arthur, 75, was convicted in the 1982 murder-for-hire of Troy Wicker.
The inmate, who was nicknamed the “Houdini” of death row because he’d had seven prior execution dates postponed, was set to die by lethal injection at the Holman Correctional Facility at Atmore.
The Supreme Court issued a temporary stay Thursday, then lifted it later that night, leading to his execution.
Phone access
Arthur’s lawyers had filed motions arguing that Alabama’s method of execution was cruel and unusual, and that the lawyers should have access to a cellphone while witnessing the execution.
Before the Supreme Court decisions, stay requests had been rejected by the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals and Gov. Kay Ivey.
Arthur’s lawyers had asked Ivey to delay the execution so DNA evidence could be examined from the killing for which he was sentenced to die.
Two executions were stopped when Arthur’s convictions were overturned. Arthur has appealed other execution orders by arguing the combination of lethal injection drugs would cause him physical pain because of a heart condition.
Multiple killings
He was convicted of killing Wicker of Muscle Shoals by shooting him in the right eye on February 1, 1982, according to court documents.
Arthur was a work release prisoner at that time. He had been convicted of killing his sister-in-law in 1977, also by shooting her in the right eye.
Arthur was in a romantic relationship with Judy Wicker, Troy Wicker’s wife, the Birmingham News reported.
She initially told authorities that a burglar wearing a wig raped her and killed her husband, the Birmingham News reported. She later testified she paid Arthur $10,000 in life insurance money to kill her husband.
Arthur, who had pleaded not guilty, was first convicted in 1983, but that verdict was overturned on appeal, the News reported.
A 1987 conviction was overturned and he was convicted again in 1991.