Federal appeals court grants stay of execution

ST. LOUIS -- Missouri will have to wait at least another day to execute Michael Anthony Taylor after the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday night refused to lift a stay granted earlier in the day by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Taylor had been scheduled to be executed Wednesday after a three-judge panel of the 8th Circuit Court in St. Louis denied his request for a stay, and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected another appeal.

But just hours before Taylor was to be put to death by lethal injection at 7 p.m., the full appeals court voted 9-1 to grant a stay and agreed to hear arguments in the case. The state's execution order was to expire at midnight.

Earlier Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Taylor's appeal that argued that Missouri's death penalty system is racist. Taylor is black and his victim was white.

Taylor, 39, of Kansas City, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, forcible rape, armed criminal action and kidnapping for the 1989 killing of 15-year-old Ann Harrison.

Taylor, speaking from his holding cell Tuesday at the state prison in Bonne Terre, said he has changed in the 17 years since the crime.

"I'm totally not the person I was when I caught this case," he said in a telephone interview. "I was high and had been smoking crack cocaine for two days.

"I pled guilty, and I told the victim's family. I let them know how sorry I was."

Taylor also told The Associated Press he received bad advice from his public defenders when they convinced him to plead guilty.

Taylor tried to persuade courts to overturn that conviction years ago, and again recently, on the grounds that he was fraudulently induced to plead guilty. Jackson County Judge Jay Daugherty on Wednesday denied Taylor's request. The attorney general's office argued Jackson County had no standing to issue any ruling. The Missouri Supreme Court agreed.

Taylor originally had been scheduled to die by injection at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, but by that afternoon, it was unclear when and if the execution would take place as the appeals proceeded.

Besides arguing that Missouri's death penalty system is racist, Taylor's attorney has challenged the state's three-drug method of execution, saying it creates an undue risk of pain if improperly administered.

Late Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Fernando Gaitan Jr. ruled that "neither the chemicals used by the state of Missouri for lethal injection nor the procedure employed to administer these injections constitutes cruel and unusual punishment."

Gaitan also wrote he was not convinced that the use of the femoral vein to administer the lethal injection violates the constitution or that Missouri physicians involved in the execution are violating their ethical obligations.

Taylor and Nunley have said they had been using drugs and wanted to steal Harrison's purse when they got the girl into their stolen vehicle. Taylor raped Harrison in Nunley's mother's basement. Fearing she would identify them, the two men killed the teenager.

Both were sentenced to death in 1991. After their sentences were overturned, they were again sentenced to death in 1994.

The Missouri Supreme Court is expected to set an execution date soon for Nunley.