Documents filed in 2nd District Court and with the Board of Pardons Friday are convicted killer William Andrews' response to the June 2 warrant for his death.
Andrews' attorneys are still trying to save his life, using a new state law that allows death sentences to be commuted to life without parole.Judge Ronald O. Hyde of the 2nd District issued the warrant for Andrews to die by lethal injection at the Utah State Prison July 30 for his role in the 1974 Ogden Hi Fi Shop killings that left three people dead and two critically injured.
Pierre Dale Selby was executed by lethal injection in 1987 for being the trigger man in the killings.
Hyde said when he issued the death warrant that the new law probably does not apply in Andrews' case and that he lacked authority to review the sentence.
Andrews' attorneys filed a petition with the Board of Pardons Friday asking for a commutation hearing and suggesting the board has authority to commute Andrews' death sentence because of the new state law.
The petition urges the board to consider whether the death sentence fits the crime in light of the fact, according to the petition, that Andrews did not personally kill any of the victims in the incident.
The petition goes on to attack the competence of Andrews' attorney while at trial and several elements of the court proceedings, and re-states claims that the jury was racially prejudiced.
Robert M. Anderson, one of Andrews' attorneys, also filed an objection in 2nd District Court Friday that contends state attorneys changed the name and wording of the Order of Execution of Judgment without consulting defense attorneys in what Anderson claims is an attempt to circumvent the new life without parole provision in Andrews' case.