Supreme Court declines to consider appeal in mail bomber case

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court rejected arguments Tuesday that Alabama officials are interfering with appeals of a man convicted of sending bombs that killed a federal judge and a civil rights lawyer from Savannah. <br> <br> Walter Leroy Moody Junior, who is on Alabama&#39;s death row, claims he is being denied access to law books and attorneys who want to help with his case. Without comment, justices declined to consider his arguments. <br> <br> Moody has maintained that he was not responsible for the series of mail bombs that raised racial tensions across the South in 1989. He was sentenced to death in the murder of U.S. Circuit Judge Robert Vance, who died when he opened a package in the kitchen of his home outside Birmingham. <br> <br> Moody was also convicted of federal charges in the deaths of Vance and attorney Robert Robinson of Savannah. He was accused of threatening to kill 17 judges and sending two other bombs that were intercepted. <br> <br> Moody, who represented himself, told the high court in a filing, ``This case, better than any other, affords the court the opportunity to address the interest of the condemned, the interest of the courts and the interest of the public. <br> <br> Prosecutors contend Moody sent the bombs out of anger over unsuccessful attempts to overturn a 1972 conviction for possessing a pipe bomb. <br> <br> The case is Moody versus Pryor, 01-7272.