Missouri death row inmate granted stay of execution

UPDATE: A spokesperson for the DOC said nothing else will be decided about the execution for several months, if not longer.

In order for an execution to take place, the Missouri Supreme Court will have to set a new execution date.

UPDATE: The U.S. Supreme Court has granted a stay for execution for Bucklew, pending further review of his appeal.

“We are grateful and relieved, as is Mr. Bucklew,” his attorney said in a statement. “We are encouraged by this step and hope for the opportunity to present Mr. Bucklew’s claims in court”

ORIGINAL: A Missouri death row inmate who is scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. Tuesday night is asking for a stay of execution, claiming that the lethal injection drug could cause blood-filled tumors inside his head to burst.

Russell Bucklew’s life was already spared back in 2014 when the Supreme Court halted his execution moments before it was scheduled to take place due to concerns over his medical condition. Bucklew suffers from cavernous hemangioma, a blood vessel abnormality that causes tumors in his nose and throat.

“Mr. Bucklew’s rare and severe condition creates a very substantial risk of a gruesome execution, with choking and gagging on blood and the infliction of excruciating pain. This needless suffering violates the Eighth Amendment,” his lawyer, Cheryl A. Pilate, said in a statement.

Pilate has submitted a request for clemency to Governor Eric Greitens.

MU law professor Paul Litton said Bucklew would have to prove that “the particular means of execution being used by Missouri would cause him an unconstitutional level of pain.’

“The standard is that a protocol is unconstitutional if it presents a substantial or intolerable risk of pain when compared to feasible alternatives,” Litton said, “He’s tried to argue that there is a feasible available alternative, which is death by nitrogen gas.”

Bucklew was sentenced to death for killing a former girlfriend’s new boyfriend during a violent rampage in eastern Missouri in 1996.

He would be the first Missouri prisoner put to death since January 2017.