BONNE TERRE, Mo. (AP) — A federal appeals court has upheld the execution in Missouri of white supremacist serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin, restoring the state's plans to kill Franklin just hours after the execution was blocked.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled early Wednesday that Missouri could proceed with Franklin's execution, just hours after a lower court blocked the execution and claimed Missouri's disputed lethal injection protocol must be resolved before the execution could go forward.

The latest ruling means that only the U.S. Supreme Court can intervene and stop the execution.

The appeals court's ruling overturns U.S. District Court Judge Nanette Laughrey, who held that the Missouri Department of Corrections "has not provided any information about the certification, inspection history, infraction history, or other aspects of the compounding pharmacy or of the person compounding the drug." She noted that the execution protocol, which has changed repeatedly, "has been a frustratingly moving target."

The state's death warrant for Franklin allows the execution to be carried out anytime Wednesday. After Laughrey ruled in his favor, Franklin's attorney, Jennifer Herndon, said Franklin's mental illness was likely keeping him from comprehending the developments.

Franklin, 63, was convicted of seven other murders, but the Missouri case was the only one resulting in a death sentence. Franklin also has admitted to shooting and wounding civil rights leader Vernon Jordan and Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt, who has been paralyzed from the waist down since the attack in 1978.

Source: AP, November 20, 2013

Judge grants stay of execution to racist serial killer ST. LOUIS (AP) — A federal judge in Missouri has given a stay of execution to white supremacist serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin just hours before his scheduled death. U.S. District Court Judge Nanette Laughery ruled late Tuesday afternoon that a lawsuit filed by Franklin and 21 other death-row inmates challenging Missouri's execution protocol must first be resolved. The 63-year-old inmate was scheduled to die at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday for killing 42-year-old Gerald Gordon in a sniper attack outside a suburban St. Louis synagogue in 1977. It was one of as many as 20 killings committed by Franklin, who targeted blacks and Jews in a cross-country killing spree from 1977 to 1980. 

Source: AP, November 19, 2013