ST. LOUIS (AP) - Attorneys for a Missouri death row inmate have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt his execution.
Mark Christeson is scheduled for lethal injection Tuesday evening. The 37-year-old was convicted in the 1998 killings of Susan Brouk, her 12-year-old daughter and her 9-year-old son in Vichy, Missouri.
In the appeal to the nation's highest court, Christeson's attorneys cite concerns about the competency of his original trial court lawyers. They say the attorneys missed a 2005 deadline to file a federal court appeal, which is a standard procedure in death penalty cases.
Christeson was hours away from execution in 2014, when the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in and remanded the case, citing the missed deadline for a federal appeal.
If the court doesn't step in this time, Christeson's lethal injection would be Missouri's first execution since May.
