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Federal inmate Hammer won't be executed today By Tim Evans Federal inmate David Paul Hammer will not be executed today at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed Monday. "The execution is not going to occur," said spokesman Dan Dunne. Dunne said federal prosecutors decided over the weekend that they would not challenge a stay issued Thursday by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. But uncertainty over whether prosecutors would appeal had prompted prison officials to continue moving ahead with plans for the execution, said Ronald Travis, one of Hammer's attorneys. When federal officials declined Friday to reveal their plans, Travis said three of the six people assigned to witness the execution were headed to Indiana. It wasn't until Saturday -- after the witnesses had arrived -- that lawyers for Hammer learned the stay would not be challenged. Hammer, 45, an Oklahoma native, was sentenced to death after being convicted in the 1996 killing of a cellmate in a Pennsylvania penitentiary. Travis said the next step in the case involves transferring Hammer back to Pennsylvania, where he is scheduled to appear Oct. 6 in federal court. At that time, Travis said, Hammer will be asked to give a "quote unquote, final answer" on whether he wants to continue appealing the execution. Hammer has changed his mind several times about challenging the death sentence issued in 1998, most recently telling a federal judge in January that he did not want to appeal. That prompted the setting of the June 8 date for his execution, which would have been the fourth at the federal prison in Terre Haute since the federal government ended a 38-year hiatus on executions in 2001. "He said he wants to go forward with the appeal," Travis said Monday. "There is no reason to believe he will go back to his 'I want to die' mode." |
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