Page 7 - ARUBA TODAY

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U.S. NEWS Friday 20 april 2018
Man, 83, set to be executed

for judge's mail-bomb slaying

By KIM CHANDLER law. Vance quietly fought for
ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — An Authorities said Moody the rights of underprivi-
inmate convicted of the mailed out a total of four leged as both a jurist and a
mail-bomb slaying of a fed- package bombs in De- politician.
eral judge during a wave cember 1989. A device As chairman of the Ala-
of Southern terror in 1989 linked to Moody killed Rob- bama Democratic Party in
was scheduled to be exe- ert E. Robinson, a black civil the 1960s and early 1970s,
cuted Thursday as the old- rights attorney from Savan- the elder Vance worked
est prisoner put to death in nah, Georgia. Two other to bring African-Americans
the U.S. in modern times. mail bombs were later in- into the party and fought
Walter Leroy Moody Jr., 83, tercepted and defused, in- then-Gov. George C. Wal-
was scheduled to receive cluding one at an NAACP lace's and other segrega-
a lethal injection Thurs- office in Jacksonville, Flor- tionists effort to control the
day evening. At his 1996 ida. Authorities said those party machinery, said Al
trial, prosecutors described bombs were meant to LaPierre, who worked for
Moody as a meticulous make investigators think Vance in the 1970s.
coward who committed the crimes were racially "He believed the Demo-
murder by mail because of motivated. cratic Party should be open
his obsession with getting Moody was first convicted and not be the party of
revenge on the legal sys- in 1991 in federal court George Wallace and the
tem, and then committed and sentenced to seven Dixiecrats," LaPierre said. This photo provided by the Alabama Department of Corrections
more package bombings life terms plus 400 years. Moody has always main- shows Walter Leroy Moody.
to make it look like the Ku He was later convicted tained his innocence.q Associated Press
Klux Klan was behind the in state court in 1996 and
judge's murder. sentenced to death for
If his execution is carried Vance's murder.
out, Moody will be the old- In last-hour appeals,
est inmate put to death Moody's attorneys had
since executions resumed asked the U.S. Supreme
in the U.S. in the 1970s, ac- Court to stay his execution
cording to the non-profit in order to review whether
Death Penalty Information his federal sentence, which
Center. His attorneys didn't was handed down first,
raise his age in legal filings, could be interrupted. They
but unsuccessfully argued also argued that the ag-
in a clemency petition to gravating factors used to
Alabama's governor that impose a death sentence
his age and health would were improper.
complicate the lethal in- The nation's high court had
jection procedure. no comment on those last-
The U.S. Supreme Court minute appeals late Thurs-
temporarily stayed execu- day.
tion plans Thursday eve- Earlier, Moody's lawyer had
ning to consider Moody's asked the Alabama Su-
late appearls, but later said preme Court to block the
without comment that it lethal injection arguing that
had lifted the stay. an emergency medical
Judge Robert S. Vance, technician who assessed
a member of the Atlanta- Moody on Wednesday told
based 11th U.S. Circuit the inmate he had "spider
Court of Appeals, was at his veins" and seemed con-
kitchen table in Mountain cerned. Alabama halted
Brook, Alabama, on Dec. an execution last month
16, 1989, when he opened after workers couldn't find
a package after a morning a usable vein on a 61-year-
of errands and yard work. old inmate.
The explosion ripped Vance's son, Robert Vance
through the home near Jr., now a circuit judge in
Birmingham, killing Vance Jefferson County and Dem-
instantly and severely injur- ocratic candidate for chief
ing his wife, Helen. Prosecu- justice in Alabama, said
tors said Moody, who had it's important that people
attended law school, had remember how his father
a grudge against the legal lived, not just how he died.
system because the 11th "He was a great judge, a
Circuit refused to overturn great lawyer before that,
a 1972 pipe-bomb posses- and a great father," he
sion conviction that pre- said.
vented him from practicing Friends said the senior