Great News! Federal court blocks Alabama execution!

Seventy-year-old Alabama death row prisoner Thomas Arthur has received a stay of execution from a federal court. He had been scheduled to be executed on the evening of 29 March for a murder committed in 1982.

Thomas Arthur was sentenced to death for the murder of Troy Wicker in 1982. He has been on death row for more than a quarter of a century. This is the fifth time he has received a stay of execution. He has now been returned to his usual death row cell, having been moved to a cell next to the death chamber as the execution approached.

Thomas Arthur maintains his innocence. There is no physical evidence against him. He has not been seeking executive clemency, but continues to seek DNA testing of crime scene evidence.