Stay Lifted, Nevada Plans Execution

CARSON CITY, Nev. — The U.S. Supreme Court voted early Sunday to lift a ruling blocking execution of convicted killer Thomas Baal, who had objected to appeals filed on his behalf.

Nevada prison officials scheduled him for execution by lethal injection at 7:05 a.m. PDT Sunday.

The high court voted 5-4 just after midnight EDT to lift a stay that had been granted Saturday by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco at the request of Baal’s parents and over Baal’s objections.

The Supreme Court had been asked by the Nevada attorney general’s office to cancel the stay. The prosecution petition included a statement from Baal saying that he is not insane or incompetent and that “I want to have this execution over with so that I can pay my debt.”

Edwin and Doris Baal, of Mesa, Colo., said they were shocked that prosecutors went to their son’s cell at the Nevada State Prison to get the statement.

The parents contended Baal’s long-term mental problems and brain damage prevented him from making a rational decision about his appeals.

Pat Flanagan, an assistant federal defender representing the Baals, said the federal appeals court stay was reasonable and should have been left intact. He said he planned no further appeals or petitions.

Baal, 26, had threatened to escape and commit more crimes if sent to a mental institution instead of being executed. The former mental patient was sentenced to die for the knifing death of a woman bus driver during a 1988 robbery in Las Vegas.

Baal’s execution would be Nevada’s fifth and the 129th nationally since the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976 cleared the way for states to resume use of the death penalty.

Nevada’s last executions were in June, 1989. In the same week, murderers Sean Flanagan and William Thompson were given lethal injections after they said they wanted no further appeals.