U.S. Supreme Court Grants Stay of “Excruciating” Execution
Vivian Kuo and Ralph Ellis of CNN report that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito stayed the execution of Missouri inmate Russell Bucklew, set to occur Wednesday morning. Bucklew’s possession of a rare birth defect, which generates “unstable tumors in his head and neck, causing him to bleed regularly from his mouth, nose, eyes and ears” could put him in danger of suffocating during lethal injection. Bucklew, convicted in 1997 of murder, kidnapping, and burglary, is one of many on death row whose attorneys have challenged lethal injection since the botched execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma last month.