State lambastes Merritt's ruling that stays Alley execution

Late-night maneuvers continue after jurist holds up scheduled lethal injection

Email | Print By E. Thomas Wood and Ken Whitehouse

Gilbert S. Merritt Jr., Senior Judge, 6th Circuit Court of Appeals

Representatives of Tennessee Attorney General Paul Summers termed as "highly irregular and in brazen violation of every rule that applies to this situation" a stay of execution issued Tuesday night by a federal appeals court judge in the case of Sedley Alley, who was set to die at 1 a.m. Wednesday for the 1985 murder of Marine Lance Cpl. Suzanne Collins.

Gil Merritt of Nashville, a senior judge on the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, issued the stay late Tuesday night. The text of Merritt's order is at this link.

The state quickly responded in a filing available at this link. "There is simply no authority for Senior Circuit Judge Merritt to entertain any original habeas [corpus] petition in this matter, let alone enter a stay of execution," argued a filing by Solicitor General Michael Moore and Assistant Deputy AG Jennifer Smith.

"The allegations are scandalous and legally wrong," defense counsel Kelley Henry told NashvillePost.com in a rushed conversation just after midnight Wednesday, when asked for her reaction to the AG's filing. Henry is representing the condemned man along with Paul Bottei of the Office of the Federal Public Defender.