The Supreme Court has denied a request to consider the case of former soldier Ronald A. Gray, who was convicted of rapes and murders in the 1980s at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
Gray’s petition was denied June 28 by the Supreme Court, according to court documents online, which did not detail a reason for the decision.
Gray and his attorneys have submitted numerous appeals as part of a 30-year process since he was convicted.
In 1988, a military court at Fort Bragg convicted Gray of the rape and murder of two women and rape and attempted murder of a third at Fort Bragg and the nearby area. At the time, he was a specialist working as a cook. He was sentenced to death.
He pleaded guilty in a civilian court to two other killings and five rapes, and he was given eight life sentences.
Gray’s appeals have become more frequent in the last two years since 2016, when a federal judge removed the stay of execution that had been in effect for eight years, The Fayetteville Observer reported. He is running out of appeals to avoid execution.
He also appealed in 2001 to the Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case. In October 2016, the Supreme Court said it would not hear challenges to the death penalty for members of the military and rejected an appeal from a former soldier sentenced to death for killing two other soldiers in Kuwait in 2003.
Gray has been detained at the U.S. Army Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas.
He was convicted of killing Army Pvt. Laura Lee Vickery-Clay, cab driver Kimberly Ann Ruggles, Campbell University student Linda Jean Coats and Tammy Wilson, the wife of a soldier.
His execution would be the first in the U.S. military since 1961.
Noah Nash is a rising senior at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. At school, he is the editor in chief of the Collegian Magazine and the digital director of the Collegian, Kenyon's newspaper.
