Academic

Army Schedules First Execution Since 1961

By Dan Filler

The U.S. Army has set December 10 as the execution date for Pvt. Ronald Gray.  He is slated to be killed at the Federal Correctional Institution in Terre Haute, Indiana.  Gray was a specialist with the 82nd Airborne, at Fort Bragg, NC, when committed a series of crimes.  Here's the story from CNN:

Gray was convicted of raping and killing a female Army private and a civilian near his post at Fort Bragg. He was also convicted of the rape and attempted murder of another fellow soldier in her barracks at the post. Both military and civilian courts found Gray responsible for the crimes, which were committed between April 1986 and January 1987.  Gray pleaded guilty to two murders and five rapes in a civilian court and was sentenced to three consecutive and five concurrent life terms. The general court-martial at Fort Bragg then tried him and in April 1988 convicted him of two murders, an attempted murder and three rapes. In July, President George W. Bush approved the Army's request to execute Gray.

According to CAAFlog, he still has a habeas petition to file - and this will implicate areas of habeas law well beyond my knowledge.  (There is a nice discussion about federal habeas in military cases here.)  One commentor to CAAFlog asks, quite reasonably, whether a President Obama will have much interest in pushing a military execution.  My guess is that he won't want to spend any political capital to stop this process.

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on November 21, 2008 (boomark / email).