US Supreme Court clears way for Arizona prisoner’s execution
FLORENCE, Ariz. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a last-minute appeal from an Arizona prisoner who faces execution on Wednesday in the 1980 killings of two people, clearing the way for the state’s third execution since it started carrying out the death penalty in May after a nearly eight-year hiatus.
Murray Hooper, 76, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at the state prison in Florence for his murder convictions in the killings of William “Pat” Redmond and his mother-in-law, Helen Phelps, at Redmond’s home in Phoenix. Redmond’s wife, Marilyn, also was shot in the head during the attack but survived and testified against Hooper at his trial.
Hooper’s lawyers had asked the Supreme Court to review his claim that that authorities had until recently withheld that Marilyn Redmond had failed to identify him in a photo lineup. The high court made no comment in rejecting his appeal.
Authorities say the killings were carried out at the behest of a man who wanted to take over Redmond’s printing business.
The courts rebuffed attempts by Hooper’s lawyers to postpone the execution and order fingerprint and DNA testing on evidence from the killings.
His lawyers said Hooper is innocent, that no physical evidence ties him to the killings and that testing could lead to identifying those responsible. They say Hooper was convicted before computerized fingerprint systems and DNA testing were available in criminal cases.
They had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review his claim that authorities had until recently withheld that Marilyn Redmond had failed to identify him in a photo lineup. However, authorities say that claim is based on a mistake a prosecutor made in a letter to the state’s clemency board and now insist that no such lineup was shown to Marilyn Redmond.
She later...