An inmate in Alabama came with­in hours of exe­cu­tion despite the fact that seri­ous doubts arose about whether he had even com­mit­ted the crime that put him on death row. Thomas Arthur had been sched­uled to die in Alabama on July 31, but the Alabama Supreme Court vot­ed 5 – 4 on July 30 to stay his exe­cu­tion after anoth­er inmate con­fessed to the mur­der for which Arthur had been sen­tenced to death. In a sworn state­ment, Bobby Ray Gilbert con­fessed to killing Troy Wicker Jr. more than 26 years ago. Gilbert is serv­ing life in prison for anoth­er mur­der. The stay marked the third time Arthur has been spared on the eve of his exe­cu­tion date. The court did not give a rea­son for its stay, but Arthur had been request­ing DNA test­ing relat­ed to the crime for some time. Apparently, some of the DNA evi­dence from the case has been report­ed miss­ing.

Arthur’s daugh­ter said she was in shock after she thought she had spent some of her last hours with her father and said, ​“I hope to final­ly end this, hope to final­ly prove the inno­cence that he’s claimed for 26 years.” An ear­li­er bid to the state’s Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals to order test­ing of the DNA in the case had been denied. Arthur’s exe­cu­tion would have been the first in the Alabama since the U.S. Supreme Court approved the use of lethal injec­tion in April 2008.
(Associated Press, ​“Other inmate’s con­fes­sion halts exe­cu­tion,” CNN, July 31, 2008). See Innocence.

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