The attorney for convicted killer Joseph Paul Franklin has asked the Missouri Supreme Court to halt Franklin's execution, citing concerns about the state's plan to use a drug obtained from a compounding pharmacy.
Attorney Jennifer Herndon, in a document filed Tuesday, wrote that the use of pentobarbital from a compounding pharmacy puts Franklin at risk for a painful execution.
Franklin is scheduled to die by injection at 12:01 a.m. Nov. 20 at the prison in Bonne Terre, Mo., for the sniper killing of 42-year-old Gerald Gordon outside a suburban St. Louis synagogue in 1977.
Franklin has been convicted of six other killings and is suspected of nearly two dozen overall in a cross-country crime spree more than 30 years ago, crimes fueled by his hatred of blacks and Jews.