Murderer Receives Stay of Execution

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESSNASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A condemned murderer received a stay of execution from the Tennessee Supreme Court less than an hour before he was scheduled to die by injection Friday. Philip Workman's attorneys have spent the last year trying to get acourt to grant them a hearing on what they contend is new evidence.That fight intensified in the past two days with several filings in five courts.Workman was turned down Thursday in a Memphis state court all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. But with 45 minutes to spare, the state Supreme Court voted 3-2 in favor of a stay and sent the case back to the trial court in Memphis for review.The piece of evidence that apparently spared Workman's life is anX-ray of the body of Memphis police Lt. Ronald Oliver, whom Workman was convicted of murdering in 1981. According to defense attorneys, the X-ray shows that the fatal bullet did not fragment or expand. They contend that bullet could not have come from Workman's gun because it was loaded with 45-caliber hollow-point slugs designed to expand upon impact. The X-ray was not used at Workman's original trial. Workman's current attorneys did not know it existed until about a year ago, when the Shelby County medical examiner mentioned it in a letter filed as part of an appeal on another issue. The state's highest court ordered the Shelby County trial court tohold a hearing to decide whether the new evidence might have resulted in a different verdict had it been presented at Workman's original trial. If the court rules in Workman's favor, he would be entitled to a new trial.Jefferson Dorsey, one of Workman's attorneys, said when he got the news of the stay, he didn't believe it. -``We had pretty much resolved ourselves that the execution wasgoing to happen,'' Dorsey said. ``I actually called the Supreme Court to see if it was true.'' The court's majority ruled that Workman's appeals have raised serious questions regarding whether he fired the shot that killed Oliver. ``If he did not fire that shot, he is not guilty of the crime for which he is scheduled to be put to death. ... No court in thisstate has actually held a hearing to fully evaluate the strength of these claims,'' the majority wrote. It was the third time Workman has been within a few hours of execution, although Friday was the closest he has come.