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Execution of officer's killer still due today
Associated Press
Published January 24, 2006
Condemned inmate Clarence Hill, scheduled to die today for the 1982 slaying of a Pensacola police officer during a bank holdup, pressed his fight Monday to avoid execution.
Hill lost an appeal in federal court in Tallahassee Saturday and had appeals pending with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta and the U.S. Supreme Court. Neither court had ruled late Monday.
Hill contends that Florida's lethal injection procedure is cruel and unusual punishment because it causes pain. Assistant Deputy Attorney General Carolyn Snurkowski said the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled against other inmates making the same claim.
Hill, 48, who is scheduled to die at 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison in Starke, also has claimed he should not be executed because he is mentally retarded. That argument was rejected by the state Supreme Court.
Hill and Cliff Jackson, both of Mobile, Ala., stole a car, drove to Pensacola and held up Freedom Federal Savings Bank on Oct. 19, 1982.
A teller tripped an alarm. Pensacola police Officer Stephen Taylor, 26, and his partner, Larry Bailly, responded, stopping Jackson as he ran outside. Hill came up behind Taylor and shot him in the back, killing him. He also shot Bailly, who returned fire, wounding Hill. Jackson was shot by another officer. All three survived. Jackson is serving life in prison.
Hill's death is one of two scheduled this month. Arthur D. Rutherford, 56, is to be executed on Jan. 31 for killing Stella Salamon, 63, at her home in Santa Rosa County in 1985.
[Last modified January 24, 2006, 00:55:20]
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Fifty years ago, they were screwed-up kids sent to the Florida School for Boys to be straightened out. But now they are screwed-up men, scarred by the whippings they endured. Read the story and see a video and portrait gallery.
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