Judge rejects Arizona prisoner’s bid to delay execution

By JACQUES BILLEAUD
Associated Press

PHOENIX (AP) — A judge has denied an Arizona prisoner’s bid to delay his execution in the 1984 killing of an 8-year-old girl. The ruling Saturday by U.S. District Judge Michael Liburdi keeps on track Wednesday’s scheduled execution of Frank Atwood, who argued the state’s death penalty procedures would violate his constitutional right against cruel and unusual punishment by subjecting him to unimaginable pain. His lawyers said Atwood, who has a degenerative spinal condition that has left him in a wheelchair would undergo excruciating suffering if he were strapped to a gurney while lying on his back during his lethal injection execution.