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Execution Date for Mentally Ill Inmate to Be Withdrawn

By Steve Hall

"Judge Salvant in Fort Worth postpones hearing on execution of mentally ill Death Row inmate Staley," is the Fort Worth Star-Telegram report by Martha Deller. For the third time in five years, a mentally ill Death Row inmate has gotten a reprieve while attorneys continue a rare legal battle over whether he can be forcibly medicated to make him sane enough to be executed. Steven Kenneth Staley, 48, was scheduled to be executed Dec. 1 for the 1989 robbery-slaying of restaurant manager Robert Read, who was fatally shot after offering himself as a hostage to spare the lives of his staff and customers at a Steak & Ale in west Fort Worth. But State District Judge Wayne Salvant, who set Staley's execution date in September, postponed a hearing this week to decide whether Staley is mentally competent to be put to death...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on November 04, 2010 (boomark / email).