Death Watch For Convicted Killer
Convicted murderer Robert Glen Coe has been moved from death row to a special death watch holding cell.
Coe was moved after a federal appeals court refused to stay his execution for the 1979 kidnapping, rape and murder of 8-year old Cary Ann Medlin of Greenfield, Tenn.
Coe, 44, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Wednesday at 1 a.m. CST.
He had asked the full 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati to review a decision made by a three-judge panel of that court that found Coe mentally competent for execution.
In denying the full hearing, the 6th Circuit said Coe's concerns were fully considered by the three-judge panel and did not deserve another hearing.
Coe's attorneys are now hoping the Supreme Court will intervene. They have asked the high court to review Coe's mental competence and Tennessee's method for determining it. He already has an appeal before the court.
U.S. Supreme Court standards prevent the execution of the insane. The threshold question is whether the inmate understands the punishment and why he or she is receiving it.
After a four-day trial court hearing in Memphis in January, Judge John Colton ruled that Coe meets the standards required for execution.
Coe cursed and spat at prosecutors during the trial, causing Colton to have Coe gagged and then removed from the courtroom to watch the proceedings from another room by television. Coe was calm after he was removed from the courtroom.
The trial court's decision has been upheld by the Tennessee Supreme Court and two tiers of federal appeals courts. Coe's request to Gov. Don Sundquist for clemency already has been denied.
In the last month, Coe has twice come within 16 hours of being executed. Both times his execution was stayed by federal courts while they reviewed the competency question.
Coe, a part-time auto mechanic, is set to become the first person executed in Tennessee in 40 years.
Some religious leaders have condemned the Tennessee Supreme Court for
scheduling the execution during the holiest week on the Christian calendar and at the beginning of the Jewish Passover. Wednesday is the first evening of Passover and four days before Easter.
A spokeswoman for the state's high court said the justices chose the date because it was one week from April 11, when a federal court lifted Coe's last stay of execution.