By Shelley Kofler, KERA News
Dallas, TX –
Late Friday Governor Rick Perry's office said the governor has no authority to issue a death penalty moratorium nor does he see a need for one, even though the US Supreme Court may halt additional executions as it considers whether lethal injection is cruel and unconstitutional.
Thursday the high court spared the life of Carlton Turner Junior of Irving several hours before his execution for killing his adoptive parents.
Turner's attorneys had appealed to the US Supreme court after the justices decided to consider lethal injection procedures.
Texas is scheduled to execute another death row inmate Wednesday, but Steve Hall of the anti-death penalty group Stand Down , says there's a good chance justices will stop that execution as well.
(Hall says Supreme Court Justices will probably treat other lethal injection executions as they did Turner's, and decline to carry out the death sentences until they have reviewed the Constituional issues raised by the Kentucky case. That could take months.)
The Governor's office says it has received a request for clemency from attorneys representing the inmate scheduled for execution Wednesday. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles will review the request.