Convict Supported by Celebrities Wins Stay of Execution

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The U.S. Supreme Court today agreed to halt the scheduled execution of Florida death row inmate Willie Jasper Darden, whose innocence has been proclaimed by death penalty opponents from New York to Moscow.

The stay will remain in effect at least until the court can hear Darden’s latest appeal, but there was no indication when that would happen. Darden had been scheduled to die Feb. 3 in Florida’s electric chair.

Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), American actress Margot Kidder and British rock star Peter Gabriel have joined Amnesty International in asking Gov. Bob Martinez to grant clemency to Darden. They cite affidavits from a minister and a woman that Darden could not have been at the scene of the murder of a Lakeland furniture store owner during a September, 1973, holdup.