Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, a Republican, is seeking an execution date for a convicted killer who has been on death row for 30 years, but her lawyer says the request is premature since the man plans to appeal to the United States Supreme Court.
Charles Ray Crawford, 58, was sentenced to death in connection with the 1993 kidnapping and murder of Kristy Ray, a 20-year-old community college student, according to the Associated Press.
At his 1994 trial, jurors cited a rape conviction as an aggravating factor when sentencing Crawford, but his lawyers said Monday they would appeal that conviction to the Supreme Court after a lower court ruled against them last week.
Crawford was arrested the day after Ray was kidnapped from her parents’ home and stabbed to death in Tippah County. Crawford told police he passed out and did not remember killing her.
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Charles Ray Crawford, an inmate on Mississippi’s death row, was convicted and sentenced to death in 1994 for the 1993 kidnapping and murder of community college student Kristy Ray, 20. (Mississippi Department of Corrections via AP)
He was arrested just days before his scheduled trial for assaulting another woman by hitting her in the head with a hammer.
The assault trial was delayed for several months before he was found guilty. In a separate trial, Crawford was convicted of raping a 17-year-old girl who was friends with the hammer attack victim. The victims were in the same place during the attacks.
Crawford said he also lost consciousness during those incidents and did not remember committing the hammer assault or the rape.
During the sentencing phase of Crawford’s capital murder trial in Ray’s death, jurors considered the rape conviction an “aggravating factor” and sentenced him to death, according to court records .
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During sentencing in Crawford’s capital murder trial, jurors considered his prior rape conviction an “aggravating circumstance” and sentenced him to death. (iStock)
In his latest federal appeal in the rape case, Crawford claimed his previous attorneys provided ineffective and unconstitutional assistance with an insanity defense. He received a mental evaluation at the state hospital, but the trial judge repeatedly refused to allow a psychiatrist or other mental health professional outside the state’s expert to assist with the Crawford’s defense, according to court records.
On Friday, the majority of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Crawford’s appeal.
But the dissenting judges wrote that he was given an “insufficiently prepared and presented insanity defense” and that “it took years for a qualified physician to conduct a full evaluation of Crawford.” The dissenting justices cited Dr. Siddhartha Nadkarni, a neurologist who examined Crawford.
“Charles suffered from such a lack of reason due to his seizure disorder that he did not understand the nature and quality of his actions at the time of the crime,” Nadkarni wrote. “This is a man with severe brain injuries (corroborated by both his history and neurological examination) who was essentially not usefully present due to seizures at the time of the crime.”
The photo shows the stretcher in an execution chamber. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, file)
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The Crawford case has already been appealed several times using various arguments, which is common in death penalty cases.
Hours after the federal appeals court rejected Crawford’s latest appeal, Fitch filed papers urging the state Supreme Court to set a date for Crawford’s execution by lethal injection, saying “it had exhausted all state and federal remedies.”
However, attorneys representing Crawford at the Mississippi Office of Post-Conviction Lawyers filed documents Monday indicating they plan to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the appeals court’s decision.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
