Alabama is scheduled to execute Casey A. McWhorter by lethal injection Thursday night, imposing the death penalty for killing and robbing Edward Lee Williams in Marshall County in 1993.

McWhorter has been on Alabama Death Row since 1994, when a Marshall County jury convicted him of capital murder and then voted 10-2 to recommend the death penalty. Circuit Judge Bill Gullahorn sentenced McWhorter to death. The execution is scheduled for 6 p.m.

The 30-hour time frame set by Gov. Kay Ivey to execute McWhorter started at 12 a.m. Thursday and ends at 6 a.m. Friday.

McWhorter would be the second inmate put to death by Alabama this year. James Barber was executed by lethal injection in July.

McWhorter’s lawyers have twice in the last two weeks asked the U.S. Supreme Court to grant a stay of his execution and to review the case. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall has filed briefs with the Supreme Court opposing those requests. The U.S. Supreme Court as of early Thursday had not ruled.

McWhorter, who was 18 at the time of the crime, was one of three teens from Albertville charged with capital murder in the case. The victim’s son, Edward Lee Williams Jr., who was 14 at the time, and Steven Daniel Miner, who was 16, pleaded guilty to a lesser offense of murder and were sentenced to life with the possibility of parole.

Read more: Casey McWhorter, Alabama death row inmate facing execution: ‘I didn’t think one mistake could put you here’

The trial court’s sentencing order for McWhorter described the crime.

McWhorter and the two other teens conspired to rob and kill Williams, the order says, discussing their plan for several weeks. On Feb. 18, 1993, a fourth person dropped McWhorter and Miner off a few blocks from Williams’ home at about 3 p.m. The fourth person and Williams’ son then drove around in anticipation of a rendezvous later.

McWhorter and Miner walked to Williams’ house, which was unlocked. They knew Williams was not expected home for several hours.

McWhorter and Miner made silencers for two .22 rifles that were in the home. They made one from a plastic jug filled with napkins and duct-taped to the rifle. They used duct tape and electrical wire to wrap a pillow around the second rifle. They test-fired the rifles into a mattress.

When Williams came home, he tried to take the rifle from Miner. During the struggle, McWhorter shot Williams, the first of 11 shots to strike the victim. After Williams was on the floor, McWhorter fired at least one shot into his head. Williams was 33.

McWhorter and Miner stole Williams’ wallet and other items from the home and left in Williams’ truck. They met Williams’ son and the fourth person at a pre-arranged spot. They took Williams’ truck into the woods, stripped it for parts, and divided up the stolen goods.

McWhorter was tried in Marshall County in March 1994. After a five-day trial and one day of deliberations, the jury returned the guilty verdict. McWhorter has lost appeals in state and federal courts.

On August 9, Attorney General Marshall asked the Alabama Supreme Court to authorize the state to carry out McWhorter’s death sentence. The court granted that request on Oct. 13.

On Oct. 18, Ivey announced the 30-hour time frame for the execution.

McWhorter’s attorneys filed their first request for a stay with the U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 1. They raised the issue of McWhorter’s age at the time of the crime, 18, and noted that 18-year-olds are minors under Alabama law and cannot serve on juries.

“Alabama’s treatment of 18-year-olds is not just arbitrary but unconstitutional,” McWhorter’s attorneys wrote in their request for a stay. “If 18-year-olds are competent to be tried as adults and subject to capital punishment, there is no rational reason for them to be excluded from state jury service. By systematically excluding 18-year-olds from jury venires, Alabama deprives criminal defendants of their right under the U.S. Constitution to a jury drawn from a fair cross-section of the community. Alabama also deprives 18-year-olds of their right to serve on juries. But if 18-year-olds are juveniles, as Alabama law has deemed, then they should not eligible for the death penalty for crimes committed as juveniles.”

Marshall, in his response, told the U.S. Supreme Court that there is no constitutional right protecting 18-year-olds from capital punishment, even in states where the minimum age for jury service is 19. Marshall also said McWhorter was raising the issue too late and that it should have been brought up at the time of McWhorter’s trial.

In a second request for a stay on Nov. 14, McWhorter’s lawyers claimed the state failed to give what they said was a required 30-day notice for McWhorter’s execution date. Ivey announced the execution time frame on Oct. 18, 29 days in advance. McWhorter’s lawyers claimed failure to provide the 30-day notice violated McWhorter’s due process and equal protection rights.

Marshall, in his opposition to McWhorter’s request for a stay, said Alabama law does not require a 30-day notice of an execution date. Marshall said the requirement is at least a 30-day period between the state Supreme Court issuing the execution warrant and the execution date. In this case, that period was more than 30 days because the state Supreme Court issued the execution warrant on Oct. 13.

Thursday night’s scheduled execution comes one year after a series of problems with lethal injections caused Ivey to call for a hold on executions in Alabama to review the process.

The moratorium came after the prolonged execution in July 2022 of Joe Nathan James Jr., followed by the failed attempts to execute Alan Eugene Miller in September and Kenneth Eugene Smith in November. The execution of James started three hours late because of difficulty starting the IV lines. The ADOC called off the executions of Miller and Smith after 11 p.m. because of concerns they would not be finished when the execution warrants expired at midnight.

The moratorium ended in February. One change that resulted from the pause was a new rule by the Alabama Supreme Court allowing the governor to set a time frame for an execution rather than limiting the death warrant to a single date. Under that rule, Ivey has scheduled the 30-hour timeframes, meaning that the state no longer faces a midnight deadline for completing an execution.

The execution of James Barber in July, the first one to follow the moratorium, was not delayed by problems connecting the IV lines. Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said after the execution that the execution team needed three sticks of Barber to secure two IV lines within six minutes. Barber had IV lines in each hand.

Alabama plans to try a new execution method next year, one never used by any state. The state is scheduled to execute Kenneth Eugene Smith by nitrogen hypoxia in January.

The Legislature authorized nitrogen hypoxia in 2018 as an alternative to lethal injection. The state released almost no information about how it would work until a redacted protocol that was attached to the request to the state Supreme Court to issued the execution warrant for Smith.

Read more: Death with a gas mask: Court ruling moves Alabama closer to using untried execution method

This story will be updated