NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- An inmate on Tennessee's death row for 28 years is awaiting an early Wednesday execution for killing a 12-year-old boy and two others during a Nashville robbery.
Fifty-three-year-old Cecil C. Johnson Jr. is to be put to death by lethal injection at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution for the 1980 killings at a market. He was sentenced to death in 1981.
U.S. District Court Judge Robert L. Echols refused on Monday to halt the execution, saying he lacks jurisdiction. However, he did order filings transferred to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, which denied Johnson's motion for a stay Tuesday afternoon.
Gov. Phil Bredesen denied executive clemency for Johnson last Wednesday.
Johnson spent Tuesday in a cell next to the execution chamber with a telephone and TV. He has met with family, attorneys and his spiritual adviser.
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