Court halts Texas execution of ex-Army recruiter convicted of murder
ASSOCIATED PRESS September 20, 2011 3:52PM
FILE - In this March 16, 2011 file photo, Texas death row inmate Cleve Foster talks on a phone at the Polunsky Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice outside Livingston, Texas. Foster, 47, is set to die Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2011 for fatally shooting 30-year-old Nyaneur Pal, whose body was found in a ditch by pipeline workers on Valentine's Day 2002. Fosters execution would be the 11th this year in Texas, the nations most active death penalty state. (AP Photo/Mike Graczyk, File)
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court has blocked the execution of a former Army recruiter for the rape-slaying of a woman in Fort Worth nearly 10 years ago.
Forty-seven-year-old Cleve Foster was set to die Tuesday evening in Huntsville.
The high court twice earlier this year had stopped Foster’s scheduled lethal injection as his punishment was imminent. This latest court ruling came less than three hours before Foster could have been taken to the Texas death chamber.
Foster was one of two men convicted and sent to death row for fatally shooting a 30-year-old woman whose body was found in a ditch by pipeline workers in Fort Worth in February 2002. His partner died last year of cancer.
