The Associated Press
January 11, 2009
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Attorneys for death row inmate James Harvey Callahan have asked the Alabama Supreme Court to block his execution set for Thursday in Alabama.
Montgomery attorney Randall S. Susskind, in a petition filed Friday, said Callahan's conviction and death sentence were obtained unconstitutionally when the trial judge in Calhoun County refused to recuse himself after the judge participated in Callahan's interrogation.
A response from prosecutors was not immediately available, but prosecutors have said Callahan has exhausted his appeals after 25 years on death row.
Callahan faces lethal injection for the Feb. 3, 1982 slaying of 26-year-old Rebecca Suzanne Howell of Jacksonville, who was abducted from a coin-operated laundry.