The AP says that one of the Texas 7 wants to drop appeals and become a volunteer for execution, but the convicting court judge refuses to set an execution date until after the U.S. Supreme Court rules in Baze v. Rees.
Rodriguez, one of the “Texas 7,” convicts who escaped from a state prison in 2000 and killed a Dallas-area police officer while on the lam, has dropped his appeals and wants to die.
He can’t.
A federal judge signed off on Rodriguez’s request Sept. 27, two days after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider a Kentucky challenge to lethal injection as a means of capital punishment. But now a state judge won’t set an execution date for Rodriguez until after the Supreme Court rules on the Kentucky case.
“We probably won’t be able to set the date for the first time until probably late next year at the earliest, even though he has volunteered and is otherwise good to go,” said Dallas prosecutor Lisa Smith.