11/8/2023 0 Comments Houdini death row alabamaAll were delayed as a pro bono legal team fought his sentence. The state set seven execution dates for Arthur between 20. The decision was strategic, he said, to open up more appellate review. A second conviction followed and also was overturned, but a third conviction stuck.Īrthur asked jurors to give him the death penalty. He remained a fugitive for more than a month. While awaiting retrial, he escaped jail in 1986 by shooting a guard in the neck. He was convicted in 1983, but that conviction was overturned. She later changed her story and testified that she had discussed killing her husband with Arthur, who came to the house wearing an Afro-style wig and with his face painted with makeup, and shot her husband. Wicker's wife Judy initially told police she came home and was raped by a black man who shot and killed her husband. Arthur was in a prison work-release program at the time for the 1977 slaying of his sister-in-law, a crime he admits to committing. 1, 1982, when police responded to a call about a break-in and found riverboat engineer Troy Wicker slain in his bed in the north Alabama city of Muscle Shoals. "Neither a fingerprint nor a weapon, nor any other physical evidence connects Thomas Arthur to the murder of Troy Wicker," said Suhana Han, Arthur's lead lawyer. I've got hope in my legal team," Arthur said in the interview.Īlabama Attorney General Steve Marshall called Arthur's case an "egregious example of how a convicted murderer can manipulate the legal system to avoid justice."Īrthur has maintained his innocence even as his defense team raises questions about the injection procedure and evidence in the case. "I'm terrified, but there's nothing I can do. Speaking by telephone Monday from a south Alabama prison, Arthur acknowledged his hopes of gaining an eighth reprieve are diminishing. They have called for additional DNA testing on the wig worn by the assailant and argued that the coughs and movements of an inmate executed in December show that midazolam - the opening sedative in Alabama's execution protocol - wouldn't properly anesthetize him before he's injected with drugs to stop his heart and lungs. The twisting legal saga over the years has involved three trials, a jail escape and a lengthy court battle by Arthur's pro bono legal team challenging the humaneness of lethal injection.Īrthur's lawyers have made a flurry of last-minute appeals, both in and out of court, seeking to halt the execution planned at 6 p.m. Tommy Arthur, an Alabama inmate called the "Houdini" of death row by some after he got seven prior execution dates postponed, is scheduled to be put to death Thursday evening.Īrthur, 75, was convicted in the 1982 murder-for-hire slaying of Troy Wicker.
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