Judge grants stay of execution in Missouri for convicted killer

A federal judge in Missouri granted a stay of execution Tuesday to avowed white supremacist and convicted serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin just hours before his scheduled death, citing concerns over the state's new lethal drug protocol.

In October, Missouri adopted new rules allowing executions by a single drug rather than a three-drug protocol that had been used previously.

Missouri said it would use the drug pentobarbital for Franklin's execution, which had been scheduled for Wednesday morning at a Missouri prison.

But U.S. District Court Judge Nanette Laughrey ruled that a lawsuit filed by Franklin and 20 other death row inmates challenging Missouri's new execution method must be resolved before he is put to death.

The 14-page ruling criticized the timing of the state's changes to how it carries out capital punishment, specifically its plan to use pentobarbital. It also took issue with a plan to acquire the drug from a compounding pharmacy.

Laughrey wrote that the Missouri Department of Corrections "has not provided any information about the certification, inspection history, infraction history, or other aspects of the compounding pharmacy or of the person compounding the drug." 

It was not immediately clear whether the state would appeal the ruling. The Missouri Attorney General's office had no immediate comment on the ruling, spokesman Eric Slusher said.

The ruling is part of a broader national reconsideration of rules concerning compounding pharmacies. 

On Monday the U.S. Senate approved a bill that would increase federal oversight of compounding pharmacies, which custom-mix medications in bulk. President Barack Obama is expected to sign the bill – which was approved by the House in September – into law. 

The bill gives the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority to inspect and close down large-volume compounders, but it does not require the pharmacies to register with the FDA, as manufacturers of prescription drugs must do.

In granting the stay, Laughrey noted that Missouri had issued three different protocols in the three months preceding Franklin's execution date – and as recently as five days before. 

"Franklin has been afforded no time to research the risk of pain associated with the department's new protocol, the quality of the pentobarbital provided, and the record of the source of the pentobarbital," Laughrey wrote. 

Like other states, Missouri long had used a three-drug execution method. After drugmakers stopped selling those drugs to prisons and corrections departments, Missouri announced a new one-drug execution protocol in April 2012 using propofol. The state planned to use propofol for an execution last month.

But Gov. Jay Nixon ordered the Missouri Department of Corrections to come up with a new drug after an outcry from the medical profession over planned use of the popular anesthetic in an execution. Most propofol is made in Europe, and the European Union had threatened to limit exports of it because of its potential use in executions.

The corrections department turned to pentobarbital made through a compounding pharmacy. Few details have been made public about the compounding pharmacy, because state law provides privacy for parties associated with executions.

"Throughout this litigation, the details of the execution protocol have been illusive at best," Laughrey wrote. "It is clear from the procedural history of this case that through no fault of his own, Franklin could not resolve his claims without a stay of his scheduled execution date."

Franklin, 63, has been linked to the deaths of at least 18 people and was convicted of killing eight in the late 1970s and 1980s in racially motivated attacks around the country.

Franklin's attorney, Jennifer Herndon, said her client – who has been diagnosed as mentally ill – did not seem to fully understand the stay.

"He was happy," she said. "I'm not really convinced that he totally understands that he was going to die."

If a federal appeals court or the U.S. Supreme Court were to strike down Laughrey's ruling, the execution could go forward.

Franklin has also admitted to shooting and wounding civil rights leader Vernon Jordan and Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt, who has been paralyzed from the waist down since the attack in 1978. 

Franklin was in his mid-20s when he began drifting across the country. He bombed a synagogue in Chattanooga, Tenn., in July 1977. No one was hurt then, but soon the killings began.

He arrived in the St. Louis area in October 1977 and picked out the Brith Sholom Kneseth Israel synagogue from the Yellow Pages. He fired five shots at the parking lot in Richmond Heights after a bar mitzvah on Oct. 8, 1977. One struck and killed Gerald Gordon, a 42-year-old father of three.

Franklin got away. His killing spree continued another three years.

Several of his victims were interracial couples. He also shot and killed, among others, two black children in Cincinnati, three female hitchhikers and a white 15-year-old prostitute, with whom he said he was angry because the girl had sex with black men.

He finally stumbled after killing two young black men in Salt Lake City in August 1980. He was arrested a month later in Kentucky, briefly escaped, and was captured for good a month after that in Florida.

Overall, Franklin was convicted of eight murders – two in Madison, Wis., two in Cincinnati, two in Salt Lake City, one in Chattanooga, Tenn., and the one in St. Louis County. Years later in federal prison, Franklin admitted to several crimes, including the St. Louis County killing. He was sentenced to death in 1997. 

Wire services