Alabama prisoner faces execution Thursday — for the 8th time

An execution room.
(Image credit: Joe Raedle/Newsmakers)

Tommy Arthur, a 75-year-old Alabama inmate sentenced to death in 1983 for murder, is facing his eighth execution date Thursday evening. Seven times before — in 2001, 2003, 2007, 2008, 2012, 2014, and 2016 — he's been slated to sit down for his last meal, only for his execution to be delayed after his legal team won appeals.

Arthur has been accused of two murders: He served five years for the second-degree murder of his wife's sister, but he's maintained his innocence in the 1982 murder of Troy Wicker, for which he was sentenced to death. Arthur's lawyer has argued that "neither a fingerprint or a weapon, nor any other physical evidence" ties Arthur to the murder.

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