Daily Chicken Scratch

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Alabama's New State Motto: Cancer Won't Kill Ya…We Will!

Alabama pushes to kill inmate before cancer does

Even though most US executions have been postponed due to a debate about lethal injection, the state of Alabama intends to execute Daniel Siebert on Thursday because of concerns that pancreatic cancer might kill him first.

Siebert, 53, was put on death row for the 1986 murder of two young women and two children aged four and five.

A fifth murder conviction was added later, a Siebert has admitted that he has killed before, according to Alabama Governor Rob Riley.

The execution is scheduled for late Thursday, but lawyers for the inmate have asked for a stay until the Supreme Court rules on lethal injection, which the court agreed to consider last month.

Meanwhile, Governor Riley has already said he will do nothing to stop the execution.

"I would in essence be commuting his sentence to life in prison and that is not the sentence he was given by a jury," Riley said. "His crimes were monstrous, brutal and ghastly."

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