By AP/KWMU
Bonne Terre, Mo. – Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon is asking the full Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a three-judge panel's decision to grant a stay of execution for condemned killer Timothy Johnston.
The stay was granted Tuesday afternoon. Johnston is scheduled to die by injection at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday for the 1989 beating death of his wife in St. Louis.
Johnston claims Missouri's three-drug method of lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment.
No reason was given for granting the stay. But a dissenting opinion by Judge Pasco Bowman says the chance of lethal injection causing pain for Johnston is, quote, "virtually nil."