Court will not consider request

Montgomery - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to consider DNA testing for condemned Alabama inmate Tommy Douglas Arthur who, along with his daughter, is fighting his Dec. 6 date for death by lethal injection.

The court without comment said it would not consider Arthur's request to stay his execution so DNA material from a 1982 crime scene in Muscle Shoals can be tested. His attorney refiled motions Monday to stay the execution, said Sherrie Stone, Arthur's daughter.

Stone said her father is innocent of the contract killing of Troy Wicker. Arthur was convicted three times for Wicker's death.

Wicker's widow, who pleaded guilty to murder, said she paid Arthur $10,000 to kill her husband. She said she and Arthur were having an affair.

At the time of her arrest, Judy Wicker said she had been beaten and raped by a black man during a burglary and that the man had shot her husband. Arthur's attorney said material from the crime scene should be tested with modern technology that wasn't available in 1982.

"You would think if there is DNA evidence there (it would be tested), especially if it could prove someone's innocence, or guilt for that matter," Stone said. "We're disappointed."

Stone said the Supreme Court relied on a technicality in Alabama law that requires post-conviction challenges to be filed within a certain amount of time. But since Alabama doesn't provide attorneys for inmates in criminal cases, Stone said her father couldn't have filed a request for DNA testing within the allotted time.

Stone said Gov. Bob Riley has the authority to stay Arthur's scheduled execution and then request DNA testing that wasn't available technically at the time that semen, hair samples, blood, and bullet cases were collected at the scene.

Riley stayed Arthur's September execution for 45 days while the state changed its method of lethal injection but he has no plans to stay this one, spokeswoman Tara Hutchison said.

Clay Crenshaw, chief of the attorney general's capital litigation section, said Arthur still has a motion pending before the U.S. Supreme Court to stay his execution based on a charge that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment.

He said the Supreme Court's decision on current motions that will be discussed in a Friday conference meeting should be known Monday.

Stone said Riley's office asked a national group, the Innocence Project, for information about DNA testing.

"I think he's thinking about it or he wouldn't have asked for the guidelines from the Innocence Project," Stone said. "DNA testing of these items can prove that Thomas Arthur is innocent and was never at the crime scene."

Crenshaw said Monday's Supreme Court ruling "ends the federal court request for DNA testing."

Dana Beyerle can be reached at (334) 264-6605.