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MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The state of Alabama is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the execution of an inmate scheduled for lethal injection Thursday.
The attorney general's office asked the justices in court papers Tuesday to deny a stay requested by Ronald Bert Smith, convicted of killing Huntsville store clerk Casey Wilson in 1994.
A judge imposed death after jurors recommended life without parole, which Smith contends conflicts with a Supreme Court decision released earlier this year from Florida. Florida previously allowed judges to override a jury to impose a death sentence, which Alabama still allows.
The state argues that the Florida decision doesn't apply to Smith's case and he waited too long to raise objections.
The state executed Christopher Eugene Brooks in January for the 1993 rape and beating death of a woman. It was the state's first execution since 2013.
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