Last week, the US Supreme Court granted a stay to Tommy Arthur, an inmate on Alabama’s death row who was scheduled to be executed Thursday. But this story is not over yet.

Arthur says he is innocent of the murder for which he has already served almost 25 years and there is biological evidence that could prove whether he is guilty or not. But the courts – and the Alabama Governor Bob Riley – refuse to grant DNA testing as set forth in the model post conviction DNA law guidelines.

“The Innocence Project has written several letters to Alabama Gov. Riley over the last few weeks, and generated editorials in virtually all of the state’s leading newspaper in support of DNA testing, but Riley hasn’t taken action to learn the truth from DNA testing in Tommy’s case,” says Alissa Talley of the Innocence Project.

Her office doesn’t represent Arthur, but attorneys here have consulted with his attorneys in recent months.

Birmingham News editorial

She is asking people to 30 seconds to send an email to Gov. Riley to “help deliver a powerful message that people across the state and across the country are watching how Alabama handles this and that we care about truth and fairness – real justice, instead of just convictions at any price (and any cost),” she said.

To send the email, visit the non-profit group’s Website and fill out a short form.

See more background on the case here.

Perhaps Alabama Governor Bob Riley has a heart after all, or maybe he just knows serious political pressure when he sees it.

Within a half hour of our posting the editorial below and sending it via e-mail to the governor’s office, “Cowboy boots” Bob granted a 45-stay of execution for death row inmate Tommy Arthur.

His justification?

Riley said a change made this week in the state’s lethal injection procedures, announced on Wednesday, were designed to ensure that the inmate is unconscious when given drugs to stop his heart and lungs. Arthur was scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. today, but he would not have received the new lethal injection formula, Riley said.

AP: Alabama Governor Grants 45-Day Stay of Execution for Arthur

There was no word from the governor’s office on whether he will reconsider his decision not to push the state legislature for a post-conviction DNA testing law, which is the law in 42 of the 50 states.

We urge Governor Riley and the Alabama Legislature to immedietely change the law and allow DNA testing in any case where it is warranted to avoid any possibility of putting innocent convicts to death.

Alabama Governor Has A Chance Today to Do The Right Thing
He Can Order DNA Testing in a Death Penalty Case

Alabama’s Republican Governor Bob Riley has a chance today to do the right thing for once in his political career.

But he may find it difficult in his black heart, due to political pressure from the Christian Right for Republicans to be tough on crime and pro-death penalty.

It is one of those strange ironies in American politics that those who fight the hardest for “life” in the case of unborn babies seem to be the most ardent supporters of “death” when it comes to accused criminals - not to mention their support of American wars in the Middle East and elsewhere.

In the case of Thomas Douglas Arthur, who is scheduled to die tonight by lethal injection in Alabama’s famous Holman prison for the murder of Troy Wicker Jr., 35, who was shot in 1982 through the right eye while he slept in his home in Muscle Shoals, Riley seems intent on doing the wrong thing.

While Arthur’s case has not drawn the level of protest of some in the past, in part perhaps because he is white, the human rights advocacy group Amnesty International did call on Governor Riley to delay the execution.

Governor Riley Asked to Delay Execution

So far he has refused, and even the conservative Birmingham News, which has sung Riley’s praises for the past five years, has taken him to task on this issue.

Riley Fails Test, Again

The U.S. Supreme Court has signaled an interest in potentially overturning lethal injection as the primary method for sending death row inmates to their final breath, agreeing to take up two Kentucky cases. The defendants in those cases both argue that the pain that goes along with lethal injection’s three-drug cocktail constitutes unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment.

Supreme Court Agrees to Consider Lethal Injection

Ruling on Kentucky Case Revives Arthur Appeal

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta had a chance to weigh in on this one, but the justices balked.

Appeals Court Denies Stay for Alabama Inmate

Governors in many states have ordered DNA testing in similar death penalty cases, including George W. Bush when he was governor of Texas and his brother Jeb as governor of Florida.

But for reasons he can only know in his heart, Riley has refused. Some anti-death penalty activists say this constitutes political murder.

“What we are witnessing on September 27 is not an execution, but is a murder,” Justice Denied Publisher Hans Sherrer says.

ThomasArthurFightForLife.com

Part of the problem is that unlike 42 other states in the Union, Alabama does not have a law requiring post-conviction DNA testing. So here, the decision is left to the governor.

Riley could have ordered DNA testing in Arthur’s case a couple of weeks ago without even delaying the execution date, according to the national Innocence Project, which fights the death penalty all over the country.

And in this case, even family members of the man who was killed would like to see the DNA evidence pursued.

“I would like to see this evidence subjected to DNA testing,” Peggy Wicker Jones said in a statement made public Aug. 21. “I would like to have as much information as possible about what happened on the day my brother Troy was murdered.”

Innocence Project co-director Peter Neufeld called it “unconscionable” that Riley would not insist on using the best science available to determine the truth before putting inmates to death.

We have long said that the state should not be in the business of killing people for any reason and urged the U.S. Supreme Court to once again overturn the death penalty as unconstitutional as it did in the 1960s. Bringing it back in the late 1970s was a mistake for a civilized society held up as a beacon of freedom for the world, especially since virtually all of the evidence shows the death penalty is no deterrent to violent crime and actually costs more to administer than a life sentence.

But at the very least, if the state is going to be in the business of killing convicted criminals, it should use every means at its disposal, including the best science on DNA testing, to avoid any chance of putting innocent people to death.

Governor Riley, are you listening? Only you can do the right thing in this case.

Stanley Tookie Williams, the Crips gang co-founder whose case stirred a national debate about capital punishment versus the possibility of redemption, was executed early Tuesday in California. Williams, 51, died at 12:35 a.m.

Officials at San Quentin State Prison seemed to have trouble injecting the lethal mixture into his muscular arm. As they struggled to find a vein, Williams looked up repeatedly and appeared frustrated, shaking his head at supporters and other witnesses.

The case became the state’s highest-profile execution in decades. Hollywood stars and capital punishment foes argued that Williams’ sentence should be commuted to life in prison because he maintained his innocence to the end and had made amends for his gang involvement by writing children’s books about the dangers of gangs and violence.

Full AP story

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger refused to block the execution of Stanley Tookie Williams Tuesday , rejecting the notion that the founder of the murderous Crips gang had atoned for his crimes and found redemption on death row. With a reprieve from the courts considered unlikely, Williams, 51, was set to die by injection at San Quentin State Prison just after midnight for murdering four people during two 1979 holdups.

Schwarzenegger Denies Clemency for Williams

California High Court Refuses Williams’ Stay