The scheduled execution of a Utah woman's killer has been delayed until Feb. 28 while the state Supreme Court determines if he is competent to halt his appeals and submit to the death penalty.
In a five-page order, the Supreme Court appointed a former state attorney general, William Leech, to represent Wayne Lee Bates at a Jan. 26 hearing.Gov. Ned McWherter had scheduled Bates' execution in the Tennessee electric chair for Dec. 1 "unless I hear otherwise from the courts."
The last execution in Tennessee's electric chair was Nov. 7, 1960, when William Tines of Memphis was put to death. More than 100 prisoners await execution, but none has exhausted appeals through state and federal courts.
Bates was convicted of the 1986 shooting death of Julie Guida, an engineer from Ogden, Utah. She was staying in Manchester while on temporary assignment with Arnold Engineering Development Center, an Air Force facility about 65 miles southeast of Nashville.
She was abducted while jogging outside her hotel and shot.