Execution Date Not Set In Crawford Case

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – The Mississippi Supreme Court has denied a motion from prosecutors to set an execution date for death row inmates Charles Ray Crawford.

The attorney general’s office had asked that Crawford’s execution be carried out March 28. That day came and went without a Supreme Court decision.

Crawford, now 43, was sentenced to death in 1994 for the murder of Northeast Mississippi Community College student Kristy Ray in rural Tippah County.

The high court on Monday declined to set an execution date while Crawford is appealing a rape and aggravated assault conviction and a 66-year sentence in another case.

Prosecutors used the earlier rape conviction as an aggravated factor against Crawford when they sought the death penalty during the sentencing phase of the Ray case.