International Courant
Mississippi Legal professional Normal Lynn Fitch, a Republican, is searching for an execution date for a convicted killer who has been on demise row for 30 years, however his lawyer argues that the request is untimely for the reason that man plans to attraction to the U.S. Supreme Courtroom.
Charles Ray Crawford, 58, was sentenced to demise in reference to the 1993 kidnapping and killing of 20-year-old neighborhood school pupil Kristy Ray, in response to The Related Press.
Throughout his 1994 trial, jurors pointed to a previous rape conviction as an aggravating circumstance after they issued Crawford’s sentence, however his attorneys stated Monday that they’re interesting that conviction to the Supreme Courtroom after a decrease court docket dominated in opposition to them final week.
Crawford was arrested the day after Ray was kidnapped from her mother and father’ dwelling and stabbed to demise in Tippah County. Crawford advised officers he had blacked out and didn’t bear in mind killing her.
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Mississippi demise row inmate Charles Ray Crawford, who was convicted and sentenced to demise in 1994 within the 1993 kidnapping and killing of a neighborhood school pupil, 20-year-old Kristy Ray. (Mississippi Division of Corrections through AP)
He was arrested simply days earlier than his scheduled trial on a cost of assaulting one other lady by hitting her over the top with a hammer.
The trial for the assault cost was delayed a number of months earlier than he was convicted. In a separate trial, Crawford was discovered responsible within the rape of a 17-year-old woman who was buddies with the sufferer of the hammer assault. The victims have been on the similar place through the assaults.
Crawford stated he additionally blacked out throughout these incidents and didn’t bear in mind committing the hammer assault or the rape.
In the course of the sentencing portion of Crawford’s capital homicide trial in Ray’s demise, jurors discovered the rape conviction to be an “aggravating circumstance” and gave him the demise sentence, in response to court docket information.
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In the course of the sentencing portion of Crawford’s capital homicide trial, jurors discovered his prior rape conviction to be an “aggravating circumstance” and gave him the demise sentence. (iStock)
In his newest federal attraction of the rape case, Crawford claimed his earlier attorneys supplied unconstitutionally ineffective help for an madness protection. He acquired a psychological analysis on the state hospital, however the trial decide repeatedly refused to permit a psychiatrist or different psychological well being skilled exterior the state’s knowledgeable to assist in Crawford’s protection, court docket information present.
On Friday, a majority of the fifth U.S. Circuit Courtroom of Appeals rejected Crawford’s attraction.
However the dissenting judges wrote that he acquired an “inadequately ready and introduced madness protection” and that “it took years for a professional doctor to conduct a full analysis of Crawford.” The dissenting judges quoted Dr. Siddhartha Nadkarni, a neurologist who examined Crawford.
“Charles was laboring beneath such a defect of purpose from his seizure dysfunction that he didn’t perceive the character and high quality of his acts on the time of the crime,” Nadkarni wrote. “He’s a severely brain-injured man (corroborated each by historical past and his neurological examination) who was primarily not current in any helpful sense on account of epileptic suits on the time of the crime.”
Photograph exhibits the gurney of an execution chamber. (AP Photograph/Sue Ogrocki, File)
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Crawford’s case has already been appealed a number of occasions utilizing varied arguments, which is widespread in demise penalty instances.
Hours after the federal appeals court docket denied Crawford’s newest attraction, Fitch filed paperwork urging the state Supreme Courtroom to set a date for Crawford’s execution by deadly injection, claiming that “he has exhausted all state and federal cures.”
Nonetheless, the attorneys representing Crawford within the Mississippi Workplace of Publish-Conviction Counsel filed paperwork on Monday stating that they plan to ask the U.S. Supreme Courtroom to overturn the appeals court docket’s ruling.
The Related Press contributed to this report.
