Arizona prisoner asks Supreme Court to delay his execution

By JACQUES BILLEAUD
Associated Press

PHOENIX (AP) — An Arizona prisoner has made a last-minute request to the U.S. Supreme Court to delay his execution scheduled Wednesday for his murder conviction in the 1984 killing of an 8-year-old girl. Frank Atwood made the request Tuesday after a lower court rejected his arguments that the execution should be called off because his degenerative spinal condition would make it excruciatingly painful for him to be strapped to the gurney he will lie on to receive the injection. Atwood’s attorneys argued that the aggravating factor that made his crime eligible for the death penalty was invalidly applied. Atwood is scheduled to be lethally injected for his conviction in the killing of Vicki Hoskinson.