Nevada’s first execution in nearly 16 years on hold again

By SCOTT SONNER and KEN RITTER
Associated Press

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Nevada’s first execution in nearly 16 years is on hold again after the state’s lawyers told a federal judge Monday they couldn’t possibly satisfy the legal requirements necessary to put Zane Michael Floyd to death before April. Nevada’s Chief Deputy Attorney General Randall Gilmer said during a brief hearing Monday that prosecutors have not obtained the death warrant necessary to execute him by lethal injection before one of the drugs the state plans to use expires Feb. 28. U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware scheduled a status hearing for April 5. Floyd was convicted in 2000 of killing four people and wounding a fifth in a shotgun attack at a Las Vegas grocery store.