Federal judge grants stay for Alabama inmate hours before scheduled execution
MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- A federal judge has halted the execution of an Alabama inmate just hours before he was to be put to death.
Chief U.S. District Judge Keith Watkins on Thursday stayed the execution of 56-year-old Jeffery Lynn Borden. The reprieve came about four hours before Borden was set to be given a lethal injection at a southwest Alabama prison.
Watkins noted that the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals this month ordered additional proceedings in Borden's challenge to the humaneness of the state's lethal injection process.
Borden and other inmates have challenged the state's use of the sedative midazolam at the start of executions, saying it would not reliably render them unconscious before other drugs stop their lungs and heart. Borden's attorney John Palombi wrote that the second drug, a paralytic to stop breathing, would make Borden would feel like he was being "buried alive" and then the third drug, potassium chloride, "would cause a massive heart attack after burning him alive from the inside."
The Alabama attorney general's office has argued the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed four executions to proceed with the same drug combination, and that Borden presented nothing new that would justify a stay.
The attorney general said there was "insufficient time to lift the stay" before the death warrant expired at midnight and said the office wouldn't appeal.
Borden was convicted of killing his estranged wife, Cheryl Borden, and her father, Roland Harris, during a 1993 Christmas Eve gathering.
Borden was returning their three children after a weeklong visit with him. Prosecutors said he shot Cheryl Borden in front of the children as she helped move their Christmas gifts and clothing and then shot Harris as he ran for help.
A jury recommended the death penalty by a 10-2 vote.