the Barbados High Court granted a stay of execution for Frederick Atkins

the Barbados High Court granted a stay of execution for Frederick Atkins, a man who had been scheduled to hang on February 14 for murdering a woman, his lawyer said. Atkins, 36, would have been the first person to be executed in the Caribbean island nation since 1984. He was sentenced to hang in 2000 for murdering 20-year-old Sharmaine Hurley.
High Court Justice Christopher Blackman ordered the stay on February 11 pending a hearing before the Court of Appeals involving two other death row inmates, Lennox Joseph and Jeffrey Boyce, said Satcha Kisson, an attorney for Atkins.
Kisson said he successfully argued before the high court that there were similarities between the two cases, including similar violations of due process and constitutional rights. Kisson, who met with Atkins on February 10, said he was imprisoned under deplorable conditions.   “This is something for the human rights commissions around the world to take notice of,” Kisson said. “The conditions inside of death row are horrible ... There is a stench they try to cover up with all types of cleaning agents but they can’t get away from it.” Kisson said Atkins “wasn’t so much in a frame of mind that he is going to die on Monday but rather was pleading for his conditions to be improved.”