Man faces death for two 1987 Lake Havasu rape-torture killings

PHOENIX -- The U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay of execution for an Arizona death-row inmate Monday, less than 24 hours before he was scheduled to die by injection for the gruesome 1987 killings of a man and a teenage boy after he tortured and raped them for hours.

The ruling means the execution of Daniel Wayne Cook, 49, is on hold while the high court considers his lawyers' argument that he had ineffective counsel during his post-conviction proceedings.

The Supreme Court's decision prompted the Arizona Department of Corrections to cancel the execution, which was set for 10 a.m. today. Cook's death warrant expires Wednesday morning; if a decision isn't reached in time, a new one must be issued. That could take weeks.

"We're very happy," defense attorney Robin Konrad said as she drove to a state prison in Florence to deliver the news to Cook. "We hope the U.S. Supreme Court considers this issue seriously."

Ultimately, Konrad seeks a new sentencing for Cook in hopes he will get life in prison instead of the death penalty.

Konrad said Cook's attorneys during his post-conviction proceedings were ineffective because they did not present to Judge Steven Conn evidence that Cook endured extreme physical and sexual abuse throughout his childhood.

Cook suffered numerous rapes at the hands of family members and a group-home worker, was burned with cigarettes and was forced to have sex with his sister, according to attorneys and court documents.

Cook has acknowledged his guilt, but has argued for a sentence of life in prison. He only recently was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and brain dysfunction stemming from the abuse, and the prosecutor who tried Cook in 1988 has said he would not have sought the death penalty had he known about it.

Assistant Attorney General Kent Cattani said it is Cook's own fault that his trial judge did not know about the abuse because Cook represented himself during his trial and didn't tell him about it. He also said Cook's crime is the "worst of the worst" and that if anyone deserves the death penalty, it's him.

"I think eventually when the court considers the petition they will find that Cook has not established a valid basis for relief and that ultimately, the sentence will be carried out," Cattani said.

A clemency board denied Cook's request to recommend that his sentenced be reduced to life in prison. While the board members voiced concerns about his abuse, they ruled that the crimes he committed were too severe to merit anything other than the death penalty.

Cook's attorneys also said he shouldn't be executed until the state implements a new single-drug method of lethal injection, a change that Arizona Department of Corrections Director Charles Ryan recently announced because of "perceived concerns" about the current three-drug method. He said the change would start after Cook's execution.

Cook's attorneys say the state broke federal law when it imported sodium thiopental because it was listed in forms as being intended for "animals (food processing)," rather than humans.

Cattani has denied that Arizona broke the law, and said the paperwork mistake came from a clerical error by the federal Food and Drug Administration.

He said the state is switching to one drug because of a U.S. shortage of sodium thiopental, not because of any alleged ineffectiveness.

A three-judge panel with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Friday upheld a lower court's ruling dismissing Cook's lawsuit over the drug issues, and the full court declined to address the issue over the weekend.

Cook was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in the July 1987 deaths of Kevin Swaney, 16, and Carlos Cruz-Ramos, 26, in Lake Havasu City.