High court spares Pa. killer the needle

BELLEFONTE, PA.

- A condemned inmate escaped lethal injection Thursday for the murder of a teen girl, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the execution should be halted.

Just hours after a federal appeals court put a stop to the preparations, the high court agreed, preventing Hubert Lester Michael Jr. from becoming the first person executed in the state since 1999.

Michael, who pleaded guilty to the shooting death of Trista Elizabeth Eng in 1993, had been taken earlier in the day to Rockview State Prison in Bellefonte, home of the execution chamber.

Pennsylvania has put to death only three inmates in the past 50 years, and all of them - unlike Michael - had given up on their appeals.

Prison officials described Michael, 56, as "very quiet, polite and composed" in what was to have been his final hours. He arrived there shortly after 6 a.m., after being transported from Greene State Prison in the state's southwestern corner.

Earlier Thursday, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to a district court judge to address, among other things, whether Michael's appeal should be considered a successive petition that is subject to stricter rules, whether "extraordinary circumstances" existed and whether a district court proceeding is needed to consider the merits of Michael's claims.

Prosecutors argued in vain to the Supreme Court that that decision was in error.

But Michael's defense attorneys argued that his claims that his federal rights have been denied deserved more attention in the lower courts.

Since he was sentenced to death, Michael had abandoned his appeals but later resumed a legal fight, saying he had been confined under circumstances at Graterford State Prison that worsened his mental-health problems. Those problems eased after he was transferred to Greene, his attorneys have argued.