A state judge has stayed an upcoming execution in Alabama to evaluate whether the man is too mentally ill to be put to death.
The judge temporarily stayed the Aug. 21 execution of David Lee Roberts until it can be established whether he has a “rational understanding” of what is to happen to him.
“Or similarly put, the issue is whether the petitioner’s concept of reality is so impaired that he cannot grasp the execution’s meaning and the purpose or the link between his crime and its punishment,” Marion County Circuit Judge Talmage Lee Carter wrote in the July 10 order…