Officials: Calif governor delays execution by 45 hours for clemency request, appeals

California governor delays execution by 45 hours

SAN FRANCISCO — California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday delayed by nearly two days an execution that had been scheduled for Wednesday.

The delay means Albert Greenwood Brown is now scheduled to die by lethal injection at 9 p.m. Thursday, Corrections Department spokeswoman Terry Thornton said.

Brown initially was scheduled for execution at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.

Thornton said the governor told corrections officials the delay would allow appeals courts time to weigh in on Brown’s case and give him time to consider a clemency request.

Brown’s attorneys have filed simultaneous appeals to the federal courts and state courts, seeking to block his execution on the grounds the state improperly adopted its new lethal injection procedures.

The delay was imposed by Schwarzenegger just hours after Marin County Superior Court Judge Verna Adams refused to block Brown’s execution after he argued in a lawsuit that California’s new death penalty regulations were improperly adopted.

“Mr. Brown cannot prove that he will suffer pain if he is executed under the current regulations,” Adams said.

A federal judge ruled similarly on Friday after Brown contended California’s lethal injection process put him at risk of suffering cruel and unusual punishment.

Brown was convicted of abducting, raping and killing a 15-year-old girl on her way home from school in 1980.

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Associated Press Writer Terry Collins in San Rafael, Calif., contributed to this report.