Kirkpatrick Appeals for Stay of Execution

A week before his scheduled death by lethal injection, convicted murderer William Kirkpatrick on Thursday backed away from his defiant demand that he be put to death, launching a last-minute appeal in federal court and proclaiming his innocence.

Kirkpatrick, who last year admitted guilt and demanded an execution date in a profanity-laced letter to the U.S. Supreme Court, denied in legal papers filed Thursday that he murdered two young men in a 1983 robbery of a Taco Bell restaurant in Burbank.

In a declaration filed in Los Angeles District Court, Kirkpatrick, 35, asks for a 45-day stay of execution and for new lawyers to help him fight his case in the federal courts, saying that his previous lawyers “refused to investigate adequately my claim of innocence as well as other important constitutional claims.”

Kirkpatrick is scheduled to die at 12:01 a.m. next Friday, becoming the first California inmate to be executed by lethal injection. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider Kirkpatrick’s case, but prisoners who file federal appeals generally are granted automatic stays.

U.S. District Judge William Keller may rule on Kirkpatrick’s request as early as today.

Kirkpatrick’s decision to pursue an appeal surprised many. In recent months, he had refused to speak to his court-appointed lawyer, Ed Horowitz of Brentwood, or open mail. Kirkpatrick even refused to meet with representatives from the California Appellate Project, the nonprofit group that helped him prepare Thursday’s declaration.

In letters to the U.S. Supreme Court, Kirkpatrick complained that some lawyers would not let him die, even though he had stabbed one 17 times with a sharpened toothbrush in a prison conference.

Kirkpatrick was convicted and sentenced to death in 1984 for the murders of Wayne Hunter and James Falconio, two employees of a Taco Bell where Kirkpatrick once worked. He shot both men in the head after stealing about $625 from the cash register and safe. Hunter was found dead by customers and Falconio died of his wounds 11 days later.

As in previous legal efforts, Kirkpatrick is asking to represent himself in federal court, but to be supplied with outside lawyers to help him investigate and prepare his case.