The U.S. Supreme Court late Thursday denied death-row inmate Samuel Lopez’s final appeal, clearing the way for his execution at 10 a.m. today in Florence.
Lopez’s attorney, assistant federal public defender Kelley Henry, said there will be no other efforts to block his execution. Lopez, 49, was convicted in 1987 of raping and murdering Estefana Holmes in her Phoenix apartment. On Friday, the Arizona Supreme Court also denied a stay, and Arizona’s Board of Executive Clemency denied a commutation bid.
His execution will be the first in which witnesses will watch, via closed-circuit TV, the insertion of the catheters that deliver the fatal drug pentobarbital. Attorneys for inmates in prior executions condemned the practice of inserting catheters into the prisoners’ groins. Officials said the executioners had found it difficult to find suitable veins in the arms and legs.
In earlier executions, witnesses only saw the prisoner after the catheters had been inserted.
Tags: Arizona, Arizona Supreme Court, Capital punishment, Closed-circuit television, Death row, Florence, Lopez, Supreme Court of the United States
