Washington Death Row inmate facing execution

OLYMPIA — A lawyer for Death Row inmate Cal Coburn Brown is asking a judge in Olympia to halt the execution scheduled for Friday at the Washington state Penitentiary. Seattle attorney Gil Levy said he would ask a Thurston County Superior Court judge Wednesday to add Brown to another inmate’s appeal on grounds lethal injection causes undue suffering. The court has scheduled a hearing in May on the appeal of Darold Ray Stenson, who received a stay in December. A spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, Janelle Guthrie, told The Seattle Post-Intelligencer no appellate court has ever ruled that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment. Brown is sentenced to die for torturing, raping and killing a Burien woman 18 years ago.