A court-appointed lawyer on Friday asked the state Supreme Court to delay a scheduled Dec. 1 execution for a murderer who said he wants to die in the Tennessee electric chair.
Paul Morrow asked the stay of execution on behalf of Wayne Lee Bates, 35, who was convicted in 1987 of shooting an Ogden woman to death in Manchester, Tenn. Bates has said he wants to drop his appeals and be executed.Morrow said he is asking for the stay while he prepares an appeal. He said the stay could be granted by a single appellate judge.
Morrow is associated with Capital Case Resource Center, an association of lawyers organized by federal and state courts to train attorneys in death penalty cases. The lawyers associated with the center also defend prisoners sentenced to die.
His petition was filed one day after Gov. Ned McWherter said the state was prepared to carry out Bates' execution on schedule unless the courts stay, or postpone, the execution.
Bates was convicted of kidnapping and shooting Julie Guida of Ogden while she was jogging near her motel in Manchester on July 23, 1986. Guida was an engineer on temporary assignment to Arnold Engineering Development Center operated by the Air Force at Tullahoma.
Tullahoma and Manchester are 65 miles southeast of Nashville.
Tennessee has more than 100 inmates on its Death Row, some of them for 15 years. Former Gov. Lamar Alexander was asked by one of the condemned men, Ron Harries, to commute his sentence to life in prison.
Alexander refused but an appeal of Death Row conditions in general prevented Harries' execution in 1982. Harries remains in prison.
The last person executed in Tennessee's electric chair was William Tines of Memphis on Nov. 7, 1960.