All known requests to stop the execution of an Arizona death row inmate have been denied, so the plan to carry out a second death sentence in eight days moved ahead Thursday.
Robert Charles Towery, 47, was scheduled to be given a lethal injection at 10 a.m. at the state prison in Florence, after spending nearly 20 years on death row for robbing and killing Mark Jones, of Scottsdale.
Towery's attorneys made several unsuccessful last-minute arguments in an effort to spare him, including a Wednesday request with the Arizona Supreme Court to reduce his sentence to 25 years to life in prison because Towery's co-defendant spent less than 10 years in prison.
Randy Allen Barker, the other man convicted in the killing, was given a plea deal for testifying against Towery and was released from prison in 2001.
Towery's lawyers argued that although Towery strangled Jones, Barker was holding the gun, watched the prolonged killing and "exhibited extreme indifference to human life."
