The Nation - News from Feb. 6, 1985
Less than a day before he was to be executed in Florida’s electric chair for killing a state trooper in 1973, Carl Ray Songer was granted an indefinite stay from a federal appeals court, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene. The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta voted 11 to 0 to have the entire court hear the condemned man’s case. Songer, 34, was convicted of killing Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Ronald G. Smith on Dec. 23, 1973.
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