Daniel Wayne Cook Files Last-Ditch Petition to Avoid Execution
Categories: Judge and Jury
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| Daniel Wayne Cook really doesn't want to die. |
After sitting on death row for more than two decades, Daniel Wayne Cook is still fighting to avoid his date with the executioner's needle, which happens to be less than a month away.
Cook's attorneys filed a petition to review his death sentence, claiming he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and brain damage that wasn't diagnosed at the time of his sentencing.
Cook was convicted of the 1987 murders of two men in Lake Havasu City, during which he raped and tortured the men before strangling them to death. He was sentenced to death and has remained on death row for about 24 years as his appeals worked their way through the courts.
Cook's lawyers aren't contesting his guilt, but say that executing the convicted murderer "would be a miscarriage of justice," the Associated Press reports.
Cook's attorneys say the Mohave County Superior Court declined to hold a hearing presenting information about their clients' new diagnoses, despite the Arizona Supreme Court last month giving prison officials the green light to set an execution date for Cook.
As it stands, Cook will be put to death on April 5, at 10 a.m.
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