Kirkpatrick Wins 2-Month Stay of Execution, Gets New Lawyers

Less than a week before he was scheduled to die by lethal injection, convicted killer William Kirkpatrick on Friday won an expected two-month stay of execution after claiming in a last-minute federal appeal that he was not guilty of a 1983 double murder.

U.S. District Judge William Keller in Los Angeles delayed the execution--scheduled for 12:01 a.m. Jan. 26--until at least March 28 so Kirkpatrick can confer with new lawyers and prepare his case. Keller appointed the federal public defender’s office to represent Kirkpatrick, who argued that his present attorneys are inadequate.

Kirkpatrick requested the stay Thursday after meetings with lawyers from the California Appellate Project, a nonprofit organization that represents death row inmates. Before Thursday’s petition, Kirkpatrick had written in a defiant, profanity-filled letter to the U.S. Supreme Court that he was guilty and wanted to die.

As in the past, Kirkpatrick requested in his petition to represent himself--and to use outside attorneys only to advise him--but Keller delegated that decision to the federal public defender’s office.