The Times-Tribune
CORBIN —
LOUISVILLE (AP) — A former FBI informant on Kentucky’s death row for a half-dozen killings lost two appeals on Thursday, potentially closing off his last avenues to avoid execution.
The Kentucky Supreme Court turned away challenges from 53-year-old Robert Carl Foley, who claimed Kentucky’s self-defense laws at the time of two of the killings in 1991 were unconstitutional and that he was eligible for a court-funded ballistics expert and social worker. Foley claimed self-defense in the slaying of Rodney and Lynn Vaughn in Laurel Co. in 1991.
Foley also attacked the current self-defense laws, but the high court found ruling on those statutes would not affect his case.
The court’s rulings come five months after the Kentucky Attorney General’s office sought an execution date for Foley — a request that was stopped when the high court halted executions while Kentucky re-enacts its lethal injection protocol.
The state is on course to send a revised protocol to Gov. Steve Beshear by May 7 for his approval or rejection.
Shelley Catherine Johnson, a spokeswoman for the Kentucky Attorney General’s office, said that 18 years have passed since the Vaughn murders and Foley has had extensive appeals.
Foley’s public defender, Heather McGregor, said she plans to ask the court to reconsider the decisions.
“We’re obviously disappointed with the rulings,” McGregor said.
Foley, on death row for more killings than any other condemned inmate, faces execution for killing Rodney and Lynn Vaughn during a dispute at his Laurel County home in 1991 and the slayings of Kimberly Bowersock, Lillian Contino, Jerry McMillen, and Calvin Reynolds in Madison County in 1989.
