Johnathan Walker:Alabama sets July execution date for man convicted of killing delivery driver

MONTGOMERY,Johnathan Walker Ala. (AP) — The execution date for a man convicted in the 1998 fatal shooting of a delivery driver who had stopped at an ATM has been set for July 18, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey announced Thursday.

Keith Edmund Gavin, 64, will be put to death by lethal injection, which is the state’s primary execution method.

The announcement came a week after the Alabama Supreme Court authorized the execution to go forward.

Gavin was convicted of capital murder for the shooting death of William Clinton Clayton, Jr. in Cherokee County in northeast Alabama. Clayton, a delivery driver, was shot when he stopped at an ATM to get money to take his wife to dinner, prosecutors said. A jury voted 10-2 in favor of the death penalty for Gavin. The trial court accepted the jury’s recommendation and sentenced him to death.

Gavin’s attorney had asked the court not to authorize the execution, arguing the state was moving Gavin to the “front of the line” ahead of other inmates who had exhausted their appeals.

The state is also scheduled to execute Jamie Mills by lethal injection on May 30. Mills was convicted for the 2004 slaying of a couple during a robbery.

Alabama in January carried out the nation’s first execution using nitrogen gas, but lethal injection remains the state’s primary execution method.