Missouri executes man convicted of triple murder

The state of Missouri executed a triple murderer by lethal injection Wednesday, hours after a U.S. appeals court overturned a decision made one day earlier that the condemned man met a standard for mental incapacity and should be given a chance for a new hearing.

Wednesday’s ruling, issued by the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, effectively reversed U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry’s decision that John Middleton, 54, was not mentally fit for execution.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled it unconstitutional to execute inmates with mental disabilities.

Middleton's attorneys petitioned the appeals court for a rehearing en banc (by the full court), but that was denied. They also filed a motion Wednesday afternoon with the Missouri Supreme Court seeking a stay of execution and appointment of a "special master" to conduct a hearing on Middleton's competency.

The appeals court effectively lifted its stay at 6 p.m. and gave Middleton time to petition for a rehearing. Middleton could have been executed at any time before 12 a.m. Thursday, authorities told Al Jazeera.

Middleton was a former methamphetamine dealer who was convicted of the 1995 murders of three people who had ties to the drug trade and who prosecutors said Middleton feared would inform on him to police.

He had been scheduled to die by injection shortly after midnight on Tuesday at a state prison in Bonne Terre, but the execution was called off after Perry's late-night ruling.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied a request to stay the execution, but lawyers for Middleton filed a new motion, which Perry granted before the inmate could be executed.

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster argued on Tuesday that Middleton was trying to manipulate the court system with the flurry of appeals.

Apart from claims of mental incapacity, Middleton's lawyers have argued that new evidence shows he was innocent of the killings of Randy Hamilton, Stacey Hodge and Alfred Pinegar. 

In May, the Supreme Court issued a stay on the execution of Russel Bucklew, a convicted murder whose health condition his lawyers said would cause him undue pain. Bucklew has asked that his execution be videotaped in the event that he dies in agony, after Oklahoma’s botched execution of death row inmate Clayton Lockett on April 29.

Al Jazeera and Reuters