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The authorities in the US state of Alabama have executed a man of 83 found guilty of murdering a judge and a lawyer in bomb attacks in 1989.

Walter Moody became the oldest prisoner to be executed in the US since the death penalty was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976.

He was put to death by lethal injection at the William C Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore on Thursday evening.

It was the eighth execution to be carried out in the US this year.

Moody was convicted in 1991 on federal murder charges - and then again in 1996 on state charges - for killing US Circuit Court judge Robert Vance.

Mr Vance had presided over a previous case involving Moody in 1972, in which he was found guilty of possessing of a pipe bomb.

Georgia civil rights lawyer Robert Robinson was murdered shortly afterwards.

The US Supreme Court had issued a temporary stay of execution for Moody but it was lifted with no reason given.

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey denied a clemency appeal from Moody's legal team, saying it was "unwarranted" and that her "ultimate desire" was to "see justice rightly administered".

The octogenarian had always maintained his innocence. However, he gave no final statement at his execution, prison officials say.

Moody's death by lethal injection took 26 minutes to complete.

Previously, Mississippi man John Nixon, 77, was the oldest man to be executed in the US in modern times.

He was put to death in 2005 having been convicted of murdering a woman in 1985.</s>Alabama has scheduled the execution of Walter Moody Jr for April 19. If the state carries out the execution, Moody will be the oldest inmate killed in the modern history of the US, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), a group that tracks capital punishment.

Though reports listed Moody's age as both 82 and 83, Bob Horton, the Alabama Department of Corrections public information officer, confirmed to Al Jazeera that Moody's age is 83 on Wednesday.

Moody was convicted in 1991 of 71 charges related to the 1989 pipe-bomb deaths of federal appeals judge Robert Vance and civil rights lawyer Robert Robinson. Moody has maintained his innocence.

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) declined to review Moody's case in January. An appeals court further denied relief for Moody on Wednesday.

Moody is expected to appeal to SCOTUS again on Thursday.

Executions were blocked by SCOTUS in 1972, but the court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 after placing "stricter standards for the constitutionality of capital punishment", Robert Dunham, the DPIC's director, told Al Jazeera.

"Nobody aged 80 or older has been executed since executions resumed in the 1970s," which is considered the modern era of capital punishment in the US, Dunham said.

These stricter standards included guaranteeing deaths that were not "cruel and unusual," as prohibited in the US Constitution, as well as a mandating that a jury decide to impose the death penalty, among other measures.

Though the number of executions is declining in the US, Moody's age is indicative of the aging population of the roughly 2,800 people on death row, the DPIC director continued.

"Nine people in their 70s" have been executed in the US since capital punishment was reinstated, Dunham said, and all of them died in the 21st century.

"When we look at people who have been executed before 2000 in the modern era, no one in their 70s or 80s" has been executed, he said.

The previous oldest person to be executed was John Nixon, 77, who died in Mississippi in 2006.

Though many believe the lengthy appeals process is to blame for the ageing population, Dunham explained that the "primary reason" for the advancing age of death row inmates is that the convicted "typically … had their convictions or death sentences overturned several times and have been resentenced."

It can take up to 20 years for a case to be overturned. The case could take another 15 years after that to work its way through the system, Dunham said.

Often, appeals are filed that claim death row inmates were not properly represented or evidence was not presented in previous trials - which can cause a new trial - or are suffering from mental illness or impairment, which bars them from execution, if proven.

Arkansas scheduled eight executions in 11 days in 2017, an unprecedented even in US history. Four of the eight men had their executions stayed due to appeals such as those listed above.

According to local media reports, prosecutors originally thought the killings of Vance and Robinson, who was African American, were racially motivated.

They later alleged that Moody was angry at the court system over a 1972 conviction for another bombing incident that injured his then-wife.

He allegedly hoped the suspicion of racist motivations in the bombings would confuse investigators.

Bob Vance, son of the assassinated judge who is also a judge himself, was quoted in local media as saying there "wasn't any real good reason" for Moody's targeting of his father.

Vance's family does not plan to attend Moody's execution. Bob told local media he got "closure" when Moody was convicted in 1991, realising he "would never be in the position to hurt anyone else.

"The execution coming up ... doesn't add anything to that," Vance said.</s>An Alabama inmate convicted of the mail-bomb slaying of a federal judge during a wave of Southern terror in 1989 has been executed as the oldest prisoner put to death in the US since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976.

Walter Leroy Moody Jr, 83, was pronounced dead at 8.42pm local time on Thursday following an injection at the Alabama prison at Atmore.

He had no last statement and did not respond when an official asked if he had any last words.

Judge Vance was only the third judge assassinated in America during the twentieth century.

At his 1996 trial, prosecutors described Moody as a meticulous coward who committed murder by mail because of his obsession with getting revenge on the legal system, and then committed more package bombings to make it look like the Ku Klux Klan was behind the judge's murder.

Moody became the oldest US inmate put to death since executions resumed in the US in the 1970s, according to the non-profit Death Penalty Information Centre.

His lawyers did not raise his age in legal filings, but they unsuccessfully argued in a clemency petition to Alabama's governor that his age and health would complicate the lethal injection procedure.

The US Supreme Court temporarily stayed execution plans on Thursday evening to consider Moody's late appeals, but later lifted the stay without comment, allowing the execution plans to go forward.

Judge Robert S Vance, a member of the Atlanta-based 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals, was at his kitchen table in Mountain Brook, Alabama, on December 16 1989, when he opened a package after a morning of errands and garden work.

The explosion ripped through the home near Birmingham, killing Mr Vance instantly and severely injuring his wife, Helen.

Prosecutors said Moody, who had attended law school, had a grudge against the legal system because the 11th Circuit refused to overturn a 1972 pipe-bomb possession conviction that prevented him from practising law.

Authorities said Moody mailed out a total of four package bombs in December 1989. A device linked to Moody killed Robert E Robinson, a black civil rights lawyer from Savannah, Georgia.

Two other mail bombs were later intercepted and defused, including one at an NAACP office in Jacksonville, Florida. Authorities said those bombs were meant to make investigators think the crimes were racially motivated.

Moody was first convicted in 1991 in federal court and sentenced to seven life terms plus 400 years. He was later convicted in state court in 1996 and sentenced to death for Mr Vance's murder.

In last-hour appeals, Moody's lawyers had asked the US Supreme Court to stay his execution in order to review whether his federal sentence, which was handed down first, could be interrupted.

They also argued that the aggravating factors used to impose a death sentence were improper. The nation's high court had no comment on those last-minute appeals on Thursday.

Earlier, Moody's lawyer had unsuccessfully asked the Alabama Supreme Court to block the lethal injection arguing that an emergency medical technician who assessed Moody on Wednesday told the inmate he had "spider veins" and seemed concerned.

Alabama halted an execution last month after workers couldn't find a usable vein on a 61-year-old inmate.

Mr Vance's son, Robert Vance Jr, now a circuit judge in Jefferson County and Democratic candidate for chief justice in Alabama, said it is important that people remember how his father lived, not just how he died.

"He was a great judge, a great lawyer before that, and a great father," he said earlier as the execution loomed.

Friends said the senior Vance quietly fought for the rights of the underprivileged as both a jurist and a politician.

Moody had always maintained his innocence.

In recent weeks, Moody had sent a letter to the younger Vance claiming he was the innocent victim of a government conspiracy. "Had my Dad been murdered, I would want to know who had done it," Moody wrote. The younger Vance said he put the letter in the bin.

The younger Vance made no plans to witness the execution. He said he had to make peace with his father's death, but said he has no doubt that Moody is guilty. Moody, he added, fits the definition of a psychopath.</s>The oldest killer ever executed in the US has been given the lethal injection aged 83.

Walter Moody was sentenced to death over a deadly serial bombing spree in 1989.

He was executed at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama, and gave no final statement, prison officials said.

His lawyer Spencer Hahn claimed that was because he'd been given a drug "to knock him out" beforehand.

Mr Hahn also said Moody appeared to move after the 'consciousness check'.

"I have attended two executions. In both, my client moved after the consciousness check. Ron Smith's was more horrific, but both were disturbing, and raise grave concerns about the DOC's (Department of Corrections) process," Mr Hahn told al.com .

"Further, I'd like to know what they gave him before to knock him out and prevent him from getting to give his last words. There was no dignity in that room.

"This dishonored the memory of Judge Vance and Mr. Robinson."

Moody was convicted of mailing a bomb in 1989 that killed U.S. Circuit Court Judge Robert Vance, 58, and another that killed Georgia civil rights attorney Robert Robinson.

Prosecutors have said Moody sent the bomb to the judge in anger over a 1972 bomb conviction that Moody felt derailed his career and sent another to the civil rights lawyer to confuse investigators.

Prosecutors have said Moody sent the bomb to the judge in anger over a 1972 bomb conviction that Moody felt derailed his career and sent another to the civil rights lawyer to confuse investigators.

Moody, who has spent more than 20 years on death row, has maintained his innocence and the execution was delayed as the U.S. Supreme Court considered last-minute appeals to spare his life, which the court rejected.

It was the eighth execution this year in the United States.

Moody replaced John Nixon, who was 77 when put to death in December 2005 in Mississippi, as the oldest person executed since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

Age and poor health were major factors in a botched execution in Alabama earlier this year when the state tried to put to death Doyle Hamm, 61, who had terminal cancer and severely compromised veins.

The execution was called off while Hamm was on a death chamber gurney and medical staff could not place a line for the lethal injection.

Lawyers for Hamm called on the state not to try to execute him again and reached a settlement with Alabama in March that legal sources said would keep him out of the death chamber.

Moody’s execution highlighted aging U.S. death row populations that have led states to put to death 10 inmates age 70 or older since 2006, including Moody. Prior to that, there had been none in the modern era of U.S. executions, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

More than 40 percent of U.S. death row inmates are 50 years of age or older, according to the center.</s>Three decades after a bombing campaign claimed the life of a federal judge, set off panic and prompted a sprawling federal investigation, authorities in Alabama executed the now-83-year-old man convicted in the explosions.

The lethal injection of Walter Leroy Moody Jr. on Thursday night made him the oldest inmate put to death in the modern era. And in a sign of how death row populations are aging amid a nationwide decline in executions, Moody became the eighth inmate older than 65 put to death since the beginning of 2015.

The execution - which occurred at a correctional facility in Atmore, Alabama, about 118 miles outside Montgomery, the capital - came in the wake of a recent string of bombings in Austin that evoked the 1989 explosions for which Moody was sentenced to death.

Moody, who maintained his innocence in the bombings, was convicted in 1991 on federal charges and then in 1996 on state charges. The FBI calls what followed the explosions "one of the largest cases in our history," with investigators scouring the debris left behind and retracing where the packages had been as they hunted for clues.

Investigators eventually discovered that the 1989 bombings had their roots in an explosive device that went off more than a decade earlier, authorities said. Moody was convicted in 1972 of possessing a pipe bomb - the FBI said it detonated, injuring his wife - and was sentenced to three years in prison.

After that, Moody "declared war on the federal judiciary," Alabama officials wrote in a court filing. They say Moody, who had attended law school, sought to have his conviction vacated, so he "bribed an acquaintance to give sworn testimony that a fictitious individual used by Moody as an alternate suspect in his 1972 trial actually existed." The ploy did not work, the officials wrote.

Moody's simmering anger toward the courts built until, authorities said, he mailed out four pipe bombs in 1989. One was shipped to the Alabama home of Robert Vance, a federal judge.

"When Judge Vance opened the pipe bomb delivered to his address he was killed almost instantly," the Alabama attorney general's office wrote in a court filing. "Helen Vance, Judge Vance's wife, was seriously injured by shrapnel from the blast which included nails that had been secured to the pipe by rubber bands."

Officials said another of Moody's bombs killed Robert Robinson, a civil rights attorney in Georgia. Two more were found and disabled before they could hurt anyone - including one at a courthouse and another at NAACP offices in Jacksonville, Florida.

The mysterious bombings in December 1989 unnerved people about their package deliveries at Christmastime. Similar fears emerged in Austin recently when packages containing explosives killed two people and injured several others. And, as occurred years later in Austin, authorities investigating the 1989 bombs were initially baffled, suspecting early on that the attacks might have been fueled by racial hatred. Authorities would later say they believed Moody had picked some of his targets to try to make them believe racism or hate groups were involved.

Investigators went on to discover numerous similarities linking the explosives, including aspects of the bombs themselves, the packaging in which they were placed and even the "stamps depicting an American flag over Yosemite National Park," according to Justice Department records.

When announcing that he had picked Louis Freeh to lead the FBI in 1993, President Bill Clinton singled out Freeh's work as a special prosecutor investigating the 1989 bombings, calling it "one of the most notorious and difficult criminal cases of our day."

As his scheduled lethal injection neared, Moody sought to have it stayed, arguing against Alabama's ability to execute him because he was first sentenced on federal charges. In 1991, Moody was sentenced in federal court to seven life terms along with 400 years behind bars. Years later, after a trial in state court ended, Moody was found guilty, and the jury voted 11 to 1 that he be sentenced to death.

Moody's attorneys argued that they are fighting "his unlawful custody status and the State of Alabama's plan to execute him before he has satisfied his federal sentences." This week, the Justice Department wrote in a court filing that Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the federal government waived its right to hold Moody in custody and consented to Alabama's holding him so it could carry out the death sentence.

Moody unsuccessfully appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday to stop the execution. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas - the justice assigned to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, which includes Alabama - had issued a temporary stay Thursday evening, but the court dissolved that stay a short time later. The court issued orders saying Thomas had referred stay requests to the court and it had denied them.

Vance's son, Bob, told AL.com in a recent interview that he would not attend the execution. While Bob Vance said he has no doubts authorities found the bomber, to this day he still wonders why his father was targeted.

"That's one of the real frustrating things about it because it's almost a random chance," Vance, a Jefferson County circuit judge running for the state Supreme Court, said in the interview. "The madman picks you out for some reason that only he and God knows and there's no rhyme or reason to it. Why my dad?"

Moody's scheduled lethal injection followed a particularly high-profile case, but it also stands out for his age. Going into Thursday, the oldest inmate executed since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 was was John Nixon, who was 77 when Mississippi executed him in 2005.

More than 2,800 people remain on death row nationwide at a time when states are carrying out fewer and fewer executions, falling to 23 executions last year from a modern peak of 98 in 1999, according to Death Penalty Information Center records.

"Death row populations are getting older," said Robert Dunham, the group's executive director. "Octogenarian executions are going to remain extremely rare. It's unprecedented in the modern era. It may happen again, but it will be rare. We've seen a series of executions of individuals in their 70s in the last couple of years, and that will become increasingly common."</s>Alabama has executed Walter Leroy Moody, 83, the oldest U.S. inmate to be put to death in modern times. The execution occurred Thursday evening, after a temporary delay because of a pending U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Moody’s final appeal.

Moody was convicted in 1996 in a December 1989 package bombing that killed a federal judge, and was originally scheduled to die Thursday evening at 6 p.m. CDT.

The nation’s highest court issued the stay order Thursday evening on behalf of Moody as it considered his requests to block the lethal injection procedure.

Moody became the oldest inmate put to death since executions resumed in the U.S. in the 1970s, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

His attorneys did not raise his age in legal filings, but argued in a clemency petition to Alabama’s governor that his age and health would complicate the lethal injection procedure.

It is not uncommon for the court to temporarily stay an execution as it considers an inmate’s final appeals.

Moody argued that his federal sentence of multiple life sentences could not be interrupted by the state of Alabama.

On Wednesday, the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals denied Moody’s request for a stay of execution, AL.com reported.

The court that denied Moody’s request Wednesday was the same one his victim was a member of nearly 30 years ago.

U.S. 11th Circuit of Appeals Judge Robert Vance Sr. was in his home in Mountain Brook, Ala., nine days before Christmas in 1989, when he opened a package that Moody had mailed to him, authorities have said.

The blast from the package instantly killed Vance and severely injured his wife, Helen, they said.

At his 1996 trial, prosecutors described Moody as a meticulous coward who committed murder by mail because of his obsession with getting revenge on the legal system, and then committed more bombings to make it look like the Ku Klux Klan was behind the judge’s murder.

Prosecutors said Moody, who had attended law school, had a grudge against the legal system because the 11th Circuit refused to overturn a 1972 pipe-bomb possession conviction that prevented him from practicing law.

A similar device linked to Moody killed Robert E. Robinson, a black civil rights attorney from Savannah, Ga. Two other mail bombs were later intercepted and defused, including one at an NAACP office in Jacksonville, Fla. Authorities said those bombs were meant to make investigators think the crimes were racially motivated.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.</s>(Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday denied last-minute appeals to spare the life of an 83-year-old convicted killer, clearing the path for Alabama’s execution of a man who would be the oldest inmate put to death in the modern era of U.S. capital punishment.

The execution of Walter Moody had been scheduled for 6 p.m. CDT (2300 GMT) at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore but was delayed as the court considered the appeals.

The Death Penalty Information Center, which monitors U.S. capital punishment, said the oldest inmate put to death since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 was 77-year-old John Nixon in Mississippi in December 2005.

There have been seven executions this year in the United States.

Moody was convicted of mailing a bomb in 1989 that killed U.S. Circuit Court Judge Robert Vance, 58, and another explosive that killed Georgia civil rights attorney Robert Robinson.

Prosecutors have said Moody sent the bomb to the judge in anger over a 1972 bomb conviction that Moody felt derailed his career, and sent the other to the civil rights lawyer to confuse investigators.

Lawyers for Moody asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to spare Moody’s life based on his transfer from the federal court system to Alabama’s.

The court did not offer details on why it denied the appeals.

Moody first received seven life sentences in a U.S. district court in 1991 for the deadly bombings. Alabama later indicted him on capital murder charges and his trial began in the state in 1996, court records showed.

Moody’s lawyer argued the transfer to an Alabama prison was illegal and he should first serve his federal sentence.

Lawyers for Alabama responded that the federal government consented to the transfer and the state had the right to implement the death penalty handed out by an Alabama court.

Although it has not been an issue in Moody’s last-minute appeals, age and poor health were major factors in a botched execution in Alabama earlier this year when the state tried to put to death Doyle Hamm, 61, who had terminal cancer and severely compromised veins.

The execution was called off while Hamm, who survived the ordeal, was on a death chamber gurney and medical staff could not place a line for the lethal injection.</s>Alabama has executed Walter Leroy Moody, 83, who had been convicted of murder for the mail bombing death of a federal judge in 1989.

Moody is the oldest person put to death since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, according to figures compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center.

Earlier Thursday, the Supreme Court denied the appeals from Moody’s attorney after temporarily delaying his death by lethal injection.

Moody was convicted in 1996 for the murder of federal Judge Robert Vance in Birmingham, Alabama.

“Moody has spent the better part of three decades trying to avoid justice. Tonight, Mr. Moody’s appeals finally came to a rightful end. Justice has been served,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said.

Moody’s attorneys had appealed to the Supreme Court after Alabama’s high court denied his petition for a stay of execution.

He was convicted in Alabama for sending a bomb that killed Vance, a federal appeals court judge. Moody, according to prosecutors, sought revenge on the court and the judge because they had previously refused to overturn his conviction in a 1972 bomb possession case.

He also was convicted in federal court in 1991 for killing Vance and for the bombing death of Robert Robinson, an NAACP attorney in Savannah, Georgia. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Moody had maintained he was framed.

Moody turned down a final meal from the state instead eating two Philly cheese steak sandwiches and drinking two Dr Peppers during a visit with friends and attorneys at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama, where he was executed.</s>(Joyce Vance via AP). This undated family photo made available by Joyce Vance, shows U.S. Circuit Judge Robert S. Vance, who was killed by a mail bomb sent to his home in Mountain Brook, Ala., in 1989. Walter Leroy Moore Jr. was convicted of capital mu...

ATMORE, Ala. (AP) - The Latest on the scheduled execution of (all times local):

Alabama has executed the oldest U.S. inmate to be put to death in modern times, an 83-year-old man convicted of a federal judge's mail-bomb slaying.

Authorities say Walter Leroy Moody Jr. was pronounced dead at 8:42 p.m. CDT Thursday after a lethal injection. He made no final statement and did not respond when a prison official asked him if he had any last words.

The non-profit Death Penalty Information Center says Moody became the oldest inmate put to death in the United States since the resumption of U.S. executions in the 1970s. Moody was convicted of killing U.S. Circuit Judge Robert S. Vance of Birmingham, who died when he opened a package mailed to his home in 1989.

Prosecutors have described Moody as a meticulous planner who committed murder by mail because of his obsession with getting revenge on the legal system. He also was convicted in federal court for a bombing that killed Robert E. Robinson, a black civil rights attorney from Savannah, Georgia.

The U.S. Supreme Court says it will not stand in the way of the planned execution of an 83-year-old Alabama inmate from going forward.

Justices on Thursday evening lifted a temporary stay that had delayed the execution of Walter Leroy Moody.

Moody is scheduled to receive a lethal injection for the 1989 mail-bomb slaying of U.S. Circuit Judge Robert S. Vance of Birmingham. The U.S. Supreme Court had delayed the execution, originally set for 6 p.m. CDT, to consider Moody's last-minute appeals.

If the execution is carried out, Moody will become the oldest inmate put to death in the U.S. since the nation resumed executions in the 1970s.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has decided not to grant clemency to a condemned inmate who could become the oldest person put to death in the modern age of the death penalty in the United States.

Ivey's attorney wrote in a letter Thursday to the inmate's legal team that the governor has determined that clemency is "unwarranted" for 83-year-old Walter Leroy Moody.

Moody was scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. CDT for the 1989 mail-bomb death of U.S. Circuit Judge Robert S. Vance of Birmingham. The U.S. Supreme Court temporarily stayed the execution to consider Moody's last-minute appeals.

Moody's attorneys argued that lethal injection will be difficult because of his age. They also argued that Vance was personally opposed to the death penalty. Ivey's office wrote that it is impossible to know if venous access can be achieved, until it is attempted.

If the execution is carried out, Moody will become the oldest inmate put to death in the U.S. since the nation resumed executions in the 1970s.

The U.S. Supreme Court has temporarily delayed the planned execution of an Alabama man convicted of a judge's mail-bomb slaying.

The nation's highest court issued the stay order Thursday evening on behalf of 83-year-old inmate Walter Leroy Moody as it considered his requests to block the lethal injection procedure. His execution time was originally set for 6 p.m. CDT.

It is not uncommon for the court to temporarily stay an execution as it considers an inmate's final appeals. Moody has argued that his federal sentence of multiple life sentences could not be interrupted by the state of Alabama.

The court is expected to rule later whether the execution plan can proceed.

Moody is set to die for the 1989 mail-bomb death of U.S. Circuit Judge Robert S. Vance of Birmingham.

If the sentence is carried out, Moody will become the oldest inmate put to death since the United States resumed executions in the 1970s.

A man who would become the oldest U.S. inmate put to death in modern times is telling a court he has vein problems, hours before he's scheduled to die by lethal injection in Alabama.

A lawyer for 83-year-old Walter Leroy Moody Jr. made the claim in seeking a stay from the Alabama Supreme Court on Thursday.

The request says an emergency medical technician visited Moody in a cell on Wednesday to check his extremities. The document says the worker told Moody he has "spider veins" and seemed concerned.

Alabama's execution of a 61-year-old inmate was stopped last month because workers couldn't find a usable vein.

Moody is set to die for the 1989 mail-bomb death of U.S. Circuit Judge Robert S. Vance of Birmingham.

An Alabama inmate is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to halt his upcoming execution.

Attorneys for Walter Leroy Moody, Jr. on Thursday asked justices to stay the execution to review whether Moody's federal sentence of multiple life terms can be interrupted for Alabama to carry out his execution. Moody is scheduled to be put to death Thursday evening by lethal injection.

Authorities said Moody mailed out four package bombs in 1989 including one that killed Robert Vance, a federal judge. The 83-year-old Moody was convicted first in federal court and sentenced to seven life sentences plus 400 years. He was later convicted in state court of capital murder and sentenced to death.

U.S. Attorney Jeff Sessions has told Alabama officials that they can have full custody of Moody to carry out his death sentence.

Moody's attorneys argued that Sessions, under federal law, cannot interrupt a federal sentence before its completion.

A package bomber who created a wave of terror across the South in the 1980s is scheduled to be executed in Alabama.

The execution is set to happen nearly 30 years after Walter Leroy Moody Jr. killed a federal judge with a bomb mailed to his home.

The 83-year-old Moody is scheduled to receive a lethal injection Thursday. Moody was convicted of killing Judge Robert S. Vance.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Moody will be the oldest inmate put to death in the United States in modern times.

Moody was also convicted in federal court of killing a black civil rights attorney from Savannah, Georgia, and mailing a bomb to a civil rights organization.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>On Thursday evening, Alabama is set to execute an 83-year-old serial package bomber named Walter Leroy Moody.

Moody is the oldest inmate on Alabama's death row and would be the oldest inmate executed in the U.S. since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

He has appealed to the Supreme Court for a stay after the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied his request on Wednesday.

Moody built shrapnel-sheathed bombs hidden in packages rigged to explode when opened. In 1989, one of those bombs killed 11th Circuit Judge Robert S. Vance at his home in Mountain Brook, Ala., and two days later, another bomb killed civil rights attorney Robert E. Robinson at his office in Savannah, Ga. The Alabama bomb also seriously injured the judge's wife, Helen Vance.

Two other bombs were intercepted before they could hurt anyone — one at the main 11th Circuit courthouse in Atlanta and another at the NAACP's office in Jacksonville, Fla. The devices bore similarities that led forensics experts to conclude they were made by the same person, including the same type of powder, batteries, and the rubber bands that secured nails on the bombs' exteriors.

Around the time of the attacks, an Atlanta television station received a letter threatening more attacks on judges, attorneys and NAACP leaders.

As his case has wound through the legal system and exhausted a string of appeals, Moody has often acted as his own attorney — including when he petitioned that same 11th Circuit court for a writ of habeas corpus, triggering his plea to the Supreme Court.

In addition to targeting the NAACP, Moody declared a deadly "war on the federal judiciary," Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a filing to the Supreme Court in response to Moody's petition.

Prosecutors say the 1989 attacks stemmed from Moody's 1972 conviction for possessing a pipe bomb that exploded in his home, injuring his wife. He served three years in federal prison.

That early attempt at a pipe bomb would later prove to be Moody's undoing: The same federal expert who worked to defuse one of the bombs Moody sent in 1989 recalled seeing similar work in Georgia years earlier. That put investigators onto Moody's trail, and he was arrested late the following year.

Marshall, the attorney general, said Moody had attended law school and was obsessed with getting his 1972 conviction overturned so he could practice law. When Moody appealed the verdict in the 1980s, prosecutors say he concocted alternate evidence and testimony. He also petitioned a federal district court to vacate the conviction.

That court turned down the petition — and the 11th Circuit "affirmed the denial of that relief in June 1989," Marshall wrote in the Supreme Court filing.

That same summer, Moody and his then-girlfriend, Susan McBride Samford, began amassing the tools and materials he would need to build bombs.

First came a tear-gas bomb that hit the regional NAACP office in Atlanta in August. Then, in December, the four pipe bombs were mailed to their targets, including Vance and Robinson, both prominent and well-respected men.

Robinson had helped desegregate a beach near Savannah as a teenager in the 1960s. He later became a city alderman and "was considered one of Savannah's rising stars," as local TV WSAV has reported.

Vance "was a lawyer here in Birmingham," his son, Bob, said in a recent video by AL.com. Bob Vance, who is now a county circuit court judge, added that his father was "also very involved politically in the Democratic Party, back in the day when it was struggling with the issues of civil rights."

Moody was tried in both federal and state courts. He was convicted on dozens of counts, from murder to obstruction of justice, and was sentenced to serve consecutive life terms without parole. In February 1997, he was sentenced to death by an Alabama circuit court in Birmingham.
Alabama executes 83-year-old Walter Moody via lethal injection, who assassinated United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit judge Robert Smith Vance on December 16, 1989. Moody is the oldest prisoner to be executed in the US since the death penalty was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976.