FLORENCE, Ariz., July 14 (UPI) -- An Arizona death-row inmate was expected to plead before the state's clemency board Thursday for life in prison instead of a lethal injection in five days.
Thomas West, 52, was expected to appeal to the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency at Arizona State Prison-Florence West, 65 miles east of Phoenix, asking that his sentence be reduced and pleading that homosexual abuse he received as a child led to his post-traumatic stress disorder, his public defender said, The Arizona Republic reported.
The severe-anxiety disorder can develop after exposure to any event that results in psychological trauma, overwhelming a person's ability to cope and sometimes leading to death threats to the person or to someone else, medical researchers say.
The board can recommend to Gov. Jan Brewer that West's death sentence be reduced to life, postponed or carried out as planned.
West was convicted in the 1987 beating death of Donald Bortle while robbing Bortle's home near Tucson.
Bortle's blood-covered body was found in a closet July 17, 1987, his hands tied behind his back.
West's lawyers Wednesday filed a lawsuit claiming the state Legislature delegated too much authority to the state's corrections director to determine how death-row inmates are executed, The Arizona Republic reported.
The lawsuit alleges the corrections director has violated lethal-injection protocols approved by the U.S. Supreme Court.
For instance, autopsies indicate executioners have injected the fatal drug doses through a catheter placed in the groin instead of in a visible arm as required by the protocol, the lawsuit stated.
