NORTH
CAROLINA-----new execution date Hunt
execution date set for Sept. 12
Henry
Lee Hunt, whose appeal of the short-form indictment to the state Supreme Court
could have emptied North Carolina's death row, was given a new execution date
Friday.
Hunt
is to be executed at 2 a.m. Sept. 12 at Central Prison, the state Department
of Correction said.
Hunt
was convicted of a murder-for-hire and the killing of a witness in Robeson
County in 1984. He came within 35 hours of being executed Jan. 22 before the
state Supreme Court agreed to hear his appeal.
Last
month, the court refused to overturn Hunt's conviction, saying the "short-form"
indictment that listed charges against him, but not the aggravating factors
that warranted the death penalty, was fair.
His
lawyers argued in April that failure to include aggravating factors is a
violation of the due process clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S.
Constitution.
But
the court said the short-form indictments have served for more than a century
"as a valid method for charging capital defendants with the crime of
1st-degree murder," Justice Edward Brady wrote.
All
of the more than 200 prisoners on the state's death row were convicted and
sentenced on short-form indictments.
(source:
Associated Press)