A Tennessee death row inmate convicted in Union County scheduled to be executed has been moved to death watch.
Stephen Michael West was found guilty of the 1986 kidnapping and stabbing deaths of Wanda Romines and her daughter Sheila Romines. He is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Thursday, Aug. 15 at 8 p.m. Eastern time.
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Death watch is the three-day period before an execution when strict guidelines are implemented to maintain the security and control of the offender and to maintain safe and orderly operations of the prison. During this period, the offender is placed in a cell adjacent to the execution chamber where he or she is under 24-hour observation by a team of correctional officers.
RELATED: Facing execution, East Tennessee’s Stephen Michael West says he wasn’t a killer
In a clemency plea to Gov. Bill Lee earlier this month, attorneys for Stephen Michael West say then 17-year-old Ronnie Martin actually killed both victims. West was 23 at the time. Their cases were separated, and while West was sentenced to death, Martin pleaded guilty and received a life sentence with the possibility of parole in 2030 as a juvenile ineligible for the death penalty.
