Michael Taylor (prisoner)

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For the screenwriter, see Michael Taylor (screenwriter), and for others of this name, see Michael Taylor (disambiguation).

Michael Taylor (born January 30, 1967) is a Missouri prison inmate on death row, convicted of raping and murdering 15-year-old Ann Harrison after abducting her from a school bus stop in Raytown, Missouri on March 22, 1989.^[1] Taylor was aided by Roderick Nunley, also currently on Missouri's death row for the same crime. Taylor and Nunley, by their own admissions in court, were under the influence of crack cocaine at the time of the crime.^[2]

Taylor was scheduled to be executed February 1, 2006, but was granted a stay of execution by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The stay was issued on the grounds that lethal injection in Taylor's case could be cruel and unusual punishment. Missouri asked the Supreme Court to vacate the stay, allowing the execution. Justice Samuel Alito, in his first official act on the Supreme Court, voted with the majority (6-3) to refuse Missouri's request. Alito's vote made headlines because he did not vote with Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Chief Justice John Roberts, said to be the conservative wing of the court.^[3]^[4]