PITTSBURGH (AP) – Gov. Tom Corbett has signed an execution warrant for a Pittsburgh-area immigration lawyer on death row for the fatal April 2000 shootings of five ethnic minorities. A sixth victim, an Indian man left paralyzed, eventually died from his wounds in 2007.
Forty-nine-year-old Richard Baumhammers, of Mount Lebanon, exhausted his state court appeals when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in May refused to overturn his conviction and death sentence.
Monday’s death warrant will be stayed when his attorneys file a federal court appeal, and might have been jeopardized anyway because the state Department of Corrections has been having difficulty buying the drugs it needs for lethal injection.
A spokesman for the state Office of General Counsel says the governor is compelled by law to sign the warrant after state appeals are exhausted.
