[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ARK.

[Rick Halperin]

Aug. 21



ARKANSAS:

Parole board opposes death row inmates clemency request


A divided Arkansas Board of Parole urged the governor on Monday to reject
a clemency request by death row inmate Terrick Terrell Nooner, who is
scheduled to die next month.

The board heard Nooner's clemency request Friday during a hearing at the
Department of Corrections' Varner Unit, where the state's death chamber is
located.

The board voted 4-3 to reject Nooner's request. The request to Go. Mike
Beebe to do likewise is non-binding.

Last month the governor set Nooner's execution for Sept. 18.

Nooner was convicted of capital murder and aggravated robbery in Pulaski
County and sentenced to die in the 1993 slaying of Scot Stobaugh, a
22-year-old University of Arkansas at Little Rock student who was killed
while washing his clothes at a coin laundry on West Markham.

In the proclamation setting the date, Beebe said all of Nooner's state and
federal appeals have been exhausted.

Stobaugh was shot 7 times, execution-style, and robbed. The laundromat
video camera captured part of the crime, including Stobaugh loading
clothes into a dryer and then raising his arms and turning his back, as
ordered by the gunman.

Board members who voted to reject Nooner's clemency request were John
Belkin, John Felts, Carolyn Robinson and Lynn Story.

"I believe they have the right man," Story wrote on a clemency interview
work sheet.

Supporting Nooner's clemency request were Parole Board Chairman Leroy
Brownlee, Abraham Carpenter and Richards Mays.

Brownlee recommended that Nooner receive life without parole.

"Evidence relied on for conviction leaves too much doubt for a capital
murder charge," he wrote on his work sheet.

Mays also said he believed there "are too many unanswered questions" for
Nooner to be executed. "I think there are mental issues with inmate," he
wrote.

During Friday's hearing, Nooner's attorney argued, among many things, that
he suffers from mental problems.

(source: Arkansas News Bureau)