The first man convicted of murder in Nevada solely on the basis of DNA evidence has been scheduled for execution at 9 p.m. March 5 in Carson City.
Corrections Director Jackie Crawford ordered the execution of Daryl Mack by lethal injection.
Mack was convicted of murdering Betty May, 55, in a southwest Reno house in 1988. He wasn't charged until 2000, when DNA evidence connected him with the crime.
At the time of his conviction, Mack was already in prison serving a life term for the 1994 strangulation of Kim Parks at a Reno motel.
Mack, 44, appealed his death sentence to the Nevada Supreme Court because it was imposed by a three-judge panel instead of a jury. He appealed following the U.S. Supreme Court decision last year saying juries, not judges, should have the responsibility to determine punishment in death cases.
The Nevada Supreme Court ruled the federal decision didn't apply in Mack's case because he waived his right to a jury trial, preferring to be tried by a judge.
The execution will take place at the Nevada State Prison on Fifth Street unless an appeal to the federal courts stays it. One of the judges who imposed the death penalty, Washoe District Judge James Hardesty, is now considering a petition from Mack to stop his execution.
In his petition, filed Tuesday, Mack asked Hardesty for a stay and also requested a court-appointed lawyer because he has no money to hire one. Mack is being held at the state's maximum-security prison near Ely.
If the execution takes place March 5, it could be followed 17 days later by the execution of Lawrence Colwell, 34. He was scheduled for execution March 22 by District Judge Donald Mosley when Colwell abandoned further appeals in his case.
He admitted killing Frank Rosenstock, 76, in March 1994 at a Las Vegas resort and has said all along he preferred death to life in prison without parole.
Mack would be the 10th Nevada inmate put to death since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death sentence in 1977. The first was Jesse Bishop, the last man to die by cyanide gas, who was executed Oct. 22, 1979.
The most recent was Sebastian Bridges, put to death by lethal injection April 21, 2001. Eight of the nine executed so far have abandoned further pleas in their cases and asked that the sentence be carried out. Richard Moran had exhausted all his appeals.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
