Court won't lift stay of execution

Court won't lift stay of execution
BY TERRY KINNEY | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A federal appeals court on Monday refused to lift a stay of execution of a man scheduled to die by injection on Tuesday in the stabbing and beating death of a woman in 1985.

In a 2-1 ruling on Friday, a panel of the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals granted an emergency stay to block the execution of Jerome Henderson. The panel gave no explanation of its ruling.

The state then asked the full court to reconsider the panel’s decision. The court said Monday that a majority of judges did not vote for a full-court hearing.


“That’s great news,” said David Stebbins, attorney for Henderson. He noted that the state has indicated it would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A spokesman for the attorney general said his office was studying its response.

Henderson, 47, was convicted in July 1985 of aggravated murder, aggravated burglary and attempted rape in the death of Mary Acoff, 26, in her Cincinnati apartment earlier that year.

Henderson had sought to join in a constitutional challenge of lethal injection. Arguments in that case are scheduled to be made in the 6th Circuit on Thursday.
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061204/NEWS01/312040031/1056/COL02