Condemned Missouri inmate Michael A. Taylor will have an additional 60 days to complete his appeals on the state's lethal injection procedures, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals acknowledged that it had not given a federal judge in Kansas City enough time to consider Taylor's appeal earlier this year.

Taylor and Roderick Nunley were sentenced to death in the March 22, 1989, murder of 15-year-old Ann Harrison. They pleaded guilty to kidnapping Harrison, raping her and stabbing her to death.

Earlier this year, Taylor and his attorneys argued that Missouri's lethal injection method constituted cruel and unusual punishment. They argued that the state's three-drug protocol could allow an inmate to remain conscious, but paralyzed, and unable to indicate that he is suffering “gratuitous and torturous pain before death,” according to court records.

John William Simon, Taylor's attorney, could not be reached for comment.
John Fougere, press secretary for Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon, said: “We have successfully argued in the past, and will continue to argue, that Missouri's method of execution through lethal injection is constitutional.”

Taylor had been scheduled to be executed Feb. 1. On Jan. 29, the 8th Circuit ordered that the district court in Kansas City hold an evidentiary hearing on Taylor's issues and issue an order before noon Feb. 1.

Taylor had sought to introduce evidence from an expert witness who was not available for a hearing during the time period that the 8th Circuit had allowed.
“We simply asked the district court and the parties to do too much in too little time,” the appeals court panel said Thursday.