Ala. inmate with cancer loses appeal

A death row inmate who wants his cancer to kill him before the state can lost an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, but he still won't be executed "for months or years," a prosecutor said.

Quadruple murderer Daniel Lee Siebert, 53, has had pancreatic cancer since at least June, according to court documents; that form of cancer can spread quickly and cause death within weeks. He has been fighting in court to die naturally.

Alabama courts had ruled that Siebert missed a deadline for challenging his conviction at the state level in the 1986 killing of Linda Ann Jarman. Alabama officials argued the missed deadline barred him from filing a petition in federal court as well, but the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Siebert.

In the unsigned decision, the Supreme Court ruled that Siebert was not entitled to file in the federal courts since he missed the state deadline. Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented.

In a separate case, Siebert came within a day of dying last month for the strangulation of Jarman's next-door neighbor, Sherri Weathers, and Weathers' two young sons in Talladega on Feb. 19, 1986, the same night Jarman was killed.

Siebert argued that the chemicals used during an execution could mix with his pain medication and inflict unnecessary pain. The 11th Circuit ruled Oct. 24, the day before Siebert was to have been executed, that he could not be put to death in that case until the Supreme Court resolves a challenge to Kentucky's lethal injection method, which is similar to the one used in most states.

Siebert has other appeal options in the Jarman case, so the state won't immediately seek an execution date, prosecutor Clay Crenshaw said. "The process could go on for months or years," Crenshaw said.

Siebert's attorney, Tommy Goggans, did not return a message seeking comment.

Esther Brown, executive secretary of Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty, said Siebert has declined treatment, other than taking pain medication. She said that his cancer is terminal, but that she doesn't know how much time he might have left.

"He's a very sick man, but I can't spell it out in days or months," she said Monday.