U.S. Supreme Court to consider Torrey McNabb Alabama execution

The fate of an inmate convicted of murdering a Montgomery police officer 20 years ago is in the hands of the nation’s highest court.

The Alabama Attorney General’s Office Wednesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow Thursday’s scheduled execution of Torrey McNabb to go forward, arguing the inmate has failed to show that a challenge to the state’s method of execution is likely to succeed.

“(McNabb) offered no new evidence in support of his request for a stay, essentially relying on the same allegations, expert reports, and deposition excerpts that he attached to his complaint and that have been part of the record for some time,” lawyers for the Attorney General’s Office wrote.

If the high court lifts the lower court’s stay, officials will execute McNabb, 40, on Thursday evening. McNabb’s attorneys argue that should not take place before a federal district court holds hearings on the inmates’ challenge.

McNabb shot Montgomery police officer Anderson Gordon III on Sept. 24, 1997 while Gordon was in a parked police car responding to an accident. 

McNabb fired at another officer who pursued him before police captured him.  

At his trial in January 1999, McNabb admitted to shooting Gordon and apologized to Gordon’s family from the witness stand. Both he and his attorneys argued that McNabb ingested a large amount of cocaine that day, which made him paranoid.

The jury convicted McNabb and recommended a sentence of death. That sentence has been upheld in federal and state courts.

Alabama executes condemned inmates using a three-drug lethal injection process. The inmate is first administered midazolam, which aims to render the condemned inmate unconscious. After a consciousness check, officials inject the inmate with rocuronium bromide, which paralyzes the muscles, and potassium chloride, which stops the heart.

The state has executed four inmates under the protocol since the beginning of 2016. Three executions took place without visible incident. But Ronald Bert Smith gasped and coughed for 13 minutes of his 34-minute execution last December, a reaction similar to other botched executions involving midazolam. Critics say the drug cannot maintain unconsciousness in the face of high-stress events, such as an inmate’s pending execution.

The inmates argue for alternative methods of execution, such as large single-dose injections of midazolam or pentobarbital. The state argues the inmates have not shown those methods would be less painful, or practical.

U.S. District Judge Keith Watkins dismissed the inmates’ lawsuit last November, but the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered new hearings in the case last month. Citing that directive, Watkins stayed the execution of Jeffery Borden earlier this month and entered his stay of McNabb’s execution on Monday. A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Source: Montgomery Advertiser, October 19, 2017

U.S. Supreme Court OKs execution of Montgomery cop-killer

The U.S. Supreme Court has cleared the way for tonight's execution of Alabama death row inmate Torrey Twane McNabb.

The execution by lethal injection is set for 6 p.m. at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.

McNabb, 40, who was convicted in the shooting death of a Montgomery police officer, had tonight's execution stayed by a federal judge on Monday.

A three-member panel of the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday kept that stay in place.

The Alabama Attorney General's Office, on behalf of the Alabama Department of Corrections, then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court late Wednesday in an effort to have the execution go on at 6 p.m. tonight.

In a brief order issued just after 4 p.m. today, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the stay be lifted, clearing the way for tonight's execution. Justices Breyer and Sotomayor dissented.

"Alabama has already carried out four executions using this protocol," the AG stated in its appeal to the Supreme Court. "Three of those executed inmates were co-plaintiffs in this case, and their stay requests were denied by both this Court and the Eleventh Circuit."

McNabb has spent the last 18 years on death row, after being convicted of fatally shooting Montgomery police officer Anderson Gordon in September 1997.

McNabb was convicted on two capital murder counts-- one for killing Gordon while he was on duty, and one for killing him as Gordon sat in his patrol car.

McNabb also was found guilty of two additional counts of attempted murder.

Source: al.com, October 19, 2017

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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde