Inmate’s lawyer questions sudden scheduling of his execution in weeks before election

Timing questioned in Calif. execution

SAN FRANCISCO — Lawyers for death row inmate Albert Greenwood Brown point to election-year politics as the reason their client was suddenly scheduled for a lethal injection this week after a five-year execution hiatus in the state.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown, the Democratic nominee for governor, is locked in a tight election duel with Republican Meg Whitman. The inmate’s lawyers argue execution is a way for Brown to woo fence-sitting voters who favor the death penalty.

A spokeswoman for the attorney general denied the charges and said Jerry Brown had nothing to do with setting the execution date.

Albert Greenwood Brown was sentenced to death for raping and killing a 15-year-old Riverside County school girl.