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Jeffrey Borden was convicted of shooting to death his estranged
wife, Cheryl Borden, and his father-in-law, Roland Harris, in
Gardendale, Alabama, in front of the former couple's children.
The stay was issued to give Borden time to challenge the use of
the sedative midazolam to carry out his execution by lethal
injection, said Christine Freeman, executive director of the
public defenders office representing Borden.
"It will not be tonight," Alabama Department of Corrections
spokeswoman Samantha Banks said by telephone.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said: "We will seek a
new execution date as soon as possible." There was too little
time to appeal against the stay for the execution to occur on
Thursday, Marshall said in a statement.
Borden's attorneys have argued that midazolam does not render an
inmate sufficiently unconscious to avoid cruel and unusual
punishment, and thus should not be used in executions.
Another man convicted of double murder was executed in Florida
on Thursday.
Michael Lambrix, 57, was pronounced dead at 10:10 p.m. at the
Florida State Prison in Starke, the state's department of
corrections said in a statement.
Lambrix was convicted of killing a man and a woman in 1983 in
Glades County in southwestern Florida after inviting them over
to eat spaghetti during a night of drinking, court records show.
He choked and stomped on Aleisha Bryant and hit Clarence Moore
Jr. over the head with a tire iron, according to records.
Lambrix said the court system that condemned him overlooked
evidence he said would show he killed Moore in self-defense.
Lambrix also said Moore killed Bryant.
"It won't be an execution," Lambrix told reporters on Tuesday at
the prison in Starke. "It's going to be an act of cold-blooded
murder."
Lambrix had sought a late stay from the U.S. Supreme Court on
the grounds that his death sentence should be considered
unconstitutional, citing a 2016 ruling that Florida was allowing
judges to exercise authority that belonged to juries.
Florida's death penalty laws have since been changed so that
only a unanimous vote by a jury can condemn someone to death. A
jury vote recommending the death penalty after Lambrix's
conviction was not unanimous.
(Reporting by Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and David
Beasley in Atlanta; Editing by Grant McCool, Peter Cooney and
Paul Tait)
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