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| Execution stayed by mental illness claim |
| By Star-Telegram |
| Published: 03/28/2005 |
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Steven Kenneth Staley, scheduled to die last Wednesday for the October 1989 killing of a Fort Worth restaurant manager during a botched robbery attempt, won a stay of execution in federal court last Tuesday. The Texas attorney general's office served notice that it would ask the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reinstate the execution date. But the order by U.S. District Judge Terry Means was hailed by the condemned man's lawyer, who is seeking to show that his client is too mentally ill to be executed. "Hopefully, this will at least give me time to get some evidence before the court showing that this guy is psychotic," Fort Worth lawyer Jack Strickland said. "He's been in and out of the prison psych ward. He's been on and off medications. He's even been in a catatonic state." Jim Gibson, an assistant Tarrant County district attorney, said tests conducted two weeks ago have already shown that Staley is competent to be executed for killing Robert Read more than 15 years ago. Gibson said the tests showed that Staley, now 42, understands the nature of his crimes and of the death sentence. He may suffer some mental illness but not to the extent the law requires to set aside his execution date, Gibson said. "He was even able to tell the doctor what chemicals will be used in the lethal injection," the prosecutor said. The facts surrounding Staley's case are largely undisputed. According to court testimony and news accounts, Staley, along with friends Tracey Duke and Brenda Rayburn, arrived at the restaurant for a meal on Oct. 14, 1989. But instead of paying the check after finishing their dinner, they pulled semiautomatic weapons from Rayburn's handbag and demanded access to the restaurant's cash registers and safe. Diners and employees were ordered to the rear of the restaurant, but an assistant manager was able to slip away to call police. As law officers set up a perimeter around the restaurant, Read, 35, offered himself as a hostage so that his customers might be spared. The robbers accepted Read's offer and left the restaurant holding him at gunpoint. They then hijacked a car and attempted to force Read into the back seat. He was shot and killed in the struggle. The robbers then began firing at onrushing police officers before speeding away in what would become a 20-mile chase that ended with the robbers trying to escape on foot. Police later tied the robbers to a strings of robberies and at least one other killing during a spree that covered four states. The spree began after Staley escaped from a Denver halfway house. |
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