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| Death row inmate given reprieve |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 07/27/2006 |
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AUSTIN, TX-- A Virginia man convicted of killing and robbing a woman at her home has won a temporary reprieve from execution after his lawyers argued he is mentally retarded. Allen Bridgers, 35, had been scheduled to die by injection last night. But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals last week ordered his case back to Smith County for the trial court to consider whether he is retarded. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that mentally retarded people cannot be executed. Bridgers was convicted in the 1997 killing of Mary Amie, 53, of Tyler, who was shot with her own pistol. He had been living with Amie for several weeks after being introduced by the woman's nephew, a truck driver who brought Bridgers to Texas from Norfolk, Va., where Bridgers' family lived. In Virginia, a similar trial was ordered in a case involving another death-row inmate. Last month, the Virginia Supreme Court sent the case of Daryl R. Atkins back to York County for another trial on whether he is mentally retarded. The Supreme Court opinion said that a jury that found Atkins is not mentally retarded should not have been told he is under a sentence of death. Atkins was convicted in a 1996 abduction, robbery and murder. |
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