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| Supreme Court declines to lift order blocking execution |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 06/22/2005 |
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The U.S. Supreme Court declined yesterday to lift an order blocking the execution of Michael Lambert, who had been scheduled to die by injection just hours later for killing a Muncie, Ind., police officer. The high court's action came a short time after officials at the Indiana State Prison halted preparations for the execution. "It is not going to occur," prison spokesman Barry Nothstine said. "We've been ordered to stand down and return prison operations to normal." The prison had been proceeding with plans to execute Lambert even though on Friday the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had issued a stay of execution. On Monday the state attorney general's office appealed the stay to the U.S. Supreme Court. Without comment, the Supreme Court refused to lift the stay, meaning the case returns to the Chicago-based appeals court. But Gov. Mitch Daniels had already ordered the prison to stop its execution preparations, at least temporarily, pending the federal appeals, spokeswoman Jane Jankowski said. Lambert, 34, was condemned for the December 1990 shooting death of Officer Greg Winters. Lambert's attorney, Alan Freedman, said he was ecstatic over the delay. "It is such a close case, you just don't know what can happen," Freedman said. "We're still not out of harm's way." Winters' widow, Molly, has said that Lambert should die for his crime. "It's hard to imagine that this has come down to the 11th hour and we were so close to having justice served to be told that it's not going to happen tonight," she said. Lambert's appeal claims that certain victim-impact testimony may have improperly affected the jury's recommendation for death. In a previous appeal, the state Supreme Court agreed with Lambert that the jury should not have heard some evidence about the impact that Winters' death had had on his family and co-workers. But the state's highest court still rejected his appeal on April 28 and set the execution date. Winters was shot to death after police arrested Lambert, who was then 20, on a charge of public intoxication, briefly patted him down and put him in the back seat of Winters' cruiser. A few minutes later, Winters was shot five times in the back of his head and neck. He died 11 days later. Lambert told the parole board last week that he was so drunk at the time of the shooting that he could remember only brief snippets of what had happened. He said he did not know what he had done until his mother told him the next day. |
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