Mississippi asks for execution date of man convicted in 1993 killing, lawyers plan to appeal case to SCOTUS

Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, a Republican, is seeking an execution day for a convicted slayer who has been connected decease enactment for 30 years, but his lawyer argues that the petition is premature since the antheral plans to entreaty to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Charles Ray Crawford, 58, was sentenced to decease successful transportation with the 1993 kidnapping and sidesplitting of 20-year-old assemblage assemblage pupil Kristy Ray, according to The Associated Press.

During his 1994 trial, jurors pointed to a past rape condemnation arsenic an aggravating condition erstwhile they issued Crawford's sentence, but his attorneys said Monday that they are appealing that condemnation to the Supreme Court aft a little tribunal ruled against them past week.

Crawford was arrested the time aft Ray was kidnapped from her parents' location and stabbed to decease successful Tippah County. Crawford told officers helium had blacked retired and did not retrieve sidesplitting her.

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Mississippi decease enactment inmate Charles Ray Crawford, who was convicted and sentenced to decease successful 1994 successful the 1993 kidnapping and sidesplitting of a assemblage assemblage student, 20-year-old Kristy Ray. (Mississippi Department of Corrections via AP)

He was arrested conscionable days earlier his scheduled proceedings connected a complaint of assaulting different pistillate by hitting her implicit the caput with a hammer.

The proceedings for the battle complaint was delayed respective months earlier helium was convicted. In a abstracted trial, Crawford was recovered blameworthy successful the rape of a 17-year-old miss who was friends with the unfortunate of the hammer attack. The victims were astatine the aforesaid spot during the attacks.

Crawford said helium besides blacked retired during those incidents and did not retrieve committing the hammer battle oregon the rape.

During the sentencing information of Crawford's superior execution proceedings successful Ray's death, jurors recovered the rape conviction to beryllium an "aggravating circumstance" and gave him the decease sentence, according to tribunal records.

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During the sentencing information of Crawford's superior execution trial, jurors recovered his anterior rape condemnation to beryllium an "aggravating circumstance" and gave him the decease sentence. (iStock)

In his latest national entreaty of the rape case, Crawford claimed his erstwhile lawyers provided unconstitutionally ineffective assistance for an insanity defense. He received a intelligence valuation astatine the authorities hospital, but the proceedings justice repeatedly refused to let a psychiatrist oregon different intelligence wellness nonrecreational extracurricular the state's adept to assistance successful Crawford's defense, tribunal records show.

On Friday, a bulk of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Crawford's appeal.

But the dissenting judges wrote that helium received an "inadequately prepared and presented insanity defense" and that "it took years for a qualified doc to behaviour a afloat valuation of Crawford." The dissenting judges quoted Dr. Siddhartha Nadkarni, a neurologist who examined Crawford.

"Charles was laboring nether specified a defect of crushed from his seizure upset that helium did not recognize the quality and prime of his acts astatine the clip of the crime," Nadkarni wrote. "He is simply a severely brain-injured antheral (corroborated some by past and his neurological examination) who was fundamentally not contiguous successful immoderate utile consciousness owed to epileptic fits astatine the clip of the crime."

Photo shows the gurney of an execution chamber. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)

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Crawford's lawsuit has already been appealed aggregate times utilizing assorted arguments, which is communal successful decease punishment cases.

Hours aft the national appeals tribunal denied Crawford's latest appeal, Fitch filed documents urging the authorities Supreme Court to acceptable a day for Crawford's execution by lethal injection, claiming that "he has exhausted each authorities and national remedies."

However, the attorneys representing Crawford successful the Mississippi Office of Post-Conviction Counsel filed documents connected Monday stating that they program to inquire the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the appeals court's ruling.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.