Burger denies Mississippi in request for execution

By Compiled From Wire Service Dispatches With Analysis From Monitor Correspondents Around The World; Edited By Linda Feldmann

July 6, 1983

PARCHMAN, Miss.

Chief Justice Warren Berger refused a request from Mississippi officials to allow the execution of condemned child-killer Jimmy Lee Gray in the state prison gas chamber.

It was the third rebuff for the state. Attorneys had tried without success to get two otther Supreme Court justices to overturn the stay during the weekend. Mr. Gray was scheduled to die in the gas chamber today (July 6), but the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans granted a stay and called on Mississippi to present rebuttal to Mr. Gray's argument that death in the gas chamber constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.