The Death Penalty Information Center said, Arthur was the 12 person executed this year in the USA and the first in Alabama.
In November, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed Arthur's last scheduled execution to consider his argument that Alabama's lethal injection procedures amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. The petition asks the Alabama Department of Corrections if Arthur's attorney, one of his designated execution witnesses, could have access to a telephone during his execution for the sole objective of communication with the courts or co-counsel.
Arthur was convicted of killing riverboat engineer Troy Wicker, who was fatally shot as he slept in his bed in the north Alabama city of Muscle Shoals.
Wicker's two sons witnessed the execution but made no statement to the media.
Arthur, who is supposed to be put to death Thursday, May 25, has avoided execution seven times already.
She said she paid him $US10,000.
"On May 25, 2017, the [Alabama Department of Corrections] intends to use the same failed protocol it used to execute Mr. Smith on Mr. Arthur", Arthur's defense attorneys argue in court documents.
Tommy Arthur in a mugshot taken at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Ala.
"I'm terrified, but there's nothing I can do", Arthur told The Associated Press.
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Ivey's lawyer said jurors knew the hairs, due to their type, did not come from Arthur but convicted him anyway.
Arthur has maintained his innocence even as his defence team raises questions about the injection procedure and evidence in the case.
Stone said she vacillated through the years on whether she thought her father was guilty or innocent. Wicker's wife initially blamed an intruder, but later testified she promised Arthur $10,000 to kill her husband.
"Thomas Arthur is an escape artist", said Janette Grantham, director of the advocacy group Victims of Crime and Leniency (VOCAL). Prison officials said he was allowed to have a picture of his children in the lethal injection chamber, where he could see it as he lost consciousness. Late Thursday afternoon, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a temporary stay "pending further order" from the justices as they consider Arthur's request.
"Thomas Arthur's protracted attempt to escape justice is finally at an end", Alabama's Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement released following the execution. At the time of Wicker's murder, Arthur was on a work release program while serving a life sentence for the 1977 murder of his sister-in-law. "I don't know how to quit". The court went on to refuse to hear his request for a firing squad rather than lethal injection, letting stand the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals' decision that Arthur had not satisfied the legal standards for challenging his method of execution, specifically the use of the lethal injection sedative, midazolam.
The Alabama Department of Corrections set execution dates for Arthur in 2001, 2003, 2007, 2008, 2012, 2014 and 2016, but all were postponed as a pro bono legal team challenged his conviction.
"Our family deserves closure and justice for the loss of (Wicker) and the nightmare that we have lived through", she said.
Speaking by telephone Monday from a south Alabama prison, Arthur acknowledged his hopes of gaining an eighth reprieve are diminishing.




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