The U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to review Tennessee's method of capital punishment in the case of Edward Jerome Harbison, who has been on death row since 1983 for the brutal murder of a St. Elmo woman.
The Supreme Court's decision comes less than a week after Mr. Harbison convinced a special local judge to review allegations of police misconduct in the case.
The failed petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as Mr. Harbison's latest petition to Hamilton County Special Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood, all have been made in an effort to keep Mr. Harbison from eventually being executed by lethal injection.
Past appeals from Mr. Harbison over the years all have been rejected. An execution date has not yet been set.
Judge Blackwood also has not issued a ruling in the case. If he rules in favor of the defense, Mr. Harbison's state public defenders could get a chance to present new evidence during a court hearing detailing how investigators in 1983 allegedly acted improperly when they failed to secure an official arrest warrant for Mr. Harbison.
A jury convicted Mr. Harbison in late 1983 of the murder of Edith Russell, who surprised Mr. Harbison and an accomplice during the robbing of her home in St. Elmo.
Federal public defender Stephen Kissinger, who is representing Mr. Harbison in his appeals to the federal government, had argued in his brief to the U.S. Supreme Court that Tennessee's method of lethal injection carries with it a substantial risk of serious pain and therefore should not be used to execute Mr. Harbison.
On Monday, Mr. Kissinger said in a written statement that Mr. Harbison in the end might have to rely on the mercy of Gov. Phil Bredesen.
"The state will undoubtedly ask to go forward even in the face of substantial risk of torturing Mr. Harbison and it will be up to (Gov. Bredesen) to step in and stop it," Mr. Kissinger stated.