Thread: DP ? - is lethal injection inhumane ?

Supreme Court rulings won't end lawsuits
By DEBORAH HASTINGS, AP National Writer
Sat Jun 28, 4:18 PM ET

For at least a decade, the Supreme Court has declined to rule on the use of lethal injections and whether the death penalty applies to anyone who rapes a child. In its term ending Friday, the high court issued decisions on both, but neither solves the bitter fight over capital punishment.

Death penalty opponents have instead promised even more litigation claiming lethal injection can cause excruciating pain.

In disparate decisions, the court ruled in April that fatal injection, when done properly, does not violate Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment. On Wednesday, justices declared killing child rapists does violate it.

And it is the earlier decision, some legal experts say, that will most affect death penalty challenges. Not for what it clarifies, but for what it doesn't.

This spring's ruling was based on one Kentucky execution that encountered no problems while officials administered a three-drug injection. Defense attorneys argued the use of that protocol risked causing cruel levels of pain.

But the court established that challengers must prove "substantial risk of serious harm." Sparse evidence presented by defense attorneys in the Kentucky case did not meet that requirement, justices said.

Yet, say several death penalty experts, that new standard establishes a threshold while simultaneously opening a door to cross it.

Defense attorneys who can document that botched executions have caused serious suffering could gain great inroads for their death row clients, those experts said.

"This presents not just an opportunity, but an obligation to develop arguments with evidence about less-than-perfect protocols," said Douglas Berman, a law professor and death penalty expert at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law. "And those states inclined to tweak their protocols may be setting themselves up for further litigation by people who will say 'Hey, they changed their protocols so that must mean there's something wrong with them.'"

Such challenges have already occurred in California, which has the nation's highest death row population at 669, and Texas, which executes more inmates than any other state.

Last week, Delaware attorneys seeking abolishment of lethal injection filed court papers saying an inmate three years ago suffered inhumane treatment during a botched execution that left him awake but paralyzed.

Advocates for capital punishment, meanwhile, say lethal injection is humane and claim the justices' decision as victory.

Besides, said Kent Scheidegger of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, execution is a punishment, not a medical procedure.

"We're dealing with a method that is relatively painless. There's no reason it should be totally without pain," he said. "There's a difference between saying we don't torture people to death and guaranteeing that death will be painless for a convicted murderer."

Thirty-five of 36 death penalty states use lethal injection. Legal fights cover myriad battlefronts — from attacking the medical qualifications of those administering the drugs to questions about whether the chemicals used comply with controlled substances laws.

Since the much-anticipated Supreme Court ruling, six states have moved to reinstate executions. There have been nine thus far — two in Georgia, two in South Carolina, two in Virginia and the rest in Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas. Another execution is scheduled Tuesday in Florida.

On their own, some state courts have already said lethal injection is unconstitutional.

Weeks after the Kentucky ruling, a judge in neighboring Ohio invalidated that state's three-drug protocol and ordered the use of a single, powerful barbiturate that would put an inmate to sleep — much in the same way that veterinarians put down animals.

In many lethal injection appeals, inmates have supported that method.

Kentucky inmates Ralph Baze and Thomas Bowling Jr., both convicted of double murders, made the same argument. Justices disagreed, saying state standards and procedures had worked because the condemned died within 15 seconds, without incident.

From now on, legal experts contend, most court arguments will turn on that specific issue. "Every defendant will say our state is not like Kentucky. Every pro-death penalty state will say our protocols are just like Kentucky's," Berman said.

The high court's other ruling is more definitive. Justices declared that executing child rapists was disproportionate to the crime committed. Capital punishment applies only to killers, justices said, and to crimes against the state.

Death row lawyers said Kentucky attorneys had been barred from presenting evidence showing death by an intravenous line had caused severe pain in other jurisdictions. All lethal injection states use some kind of triple-dose procedure that first delivers an anesthetic to put the inmate to sleep, then a second paralyzing chemical, and a final dose that stops the heart.

It was developed by an Oklahoma coroner in 1977 and has little changed. It was designed to avoid distasteful deaths associated with electric chairs and gas chambers — executions in which some inmates had been set afire and others choked and convulsed from toxic fumes.

Lethal injection was less objectionable, prison officials said, and its paralyzing agent would ease discomfort to those witnessing executions.

But if anesthesia is not administered correctly, or in a high enough dose, inmates remain awake and able to feel pain as the procedure continues, say inmate attorneys. Paralysis prevents the prisoner from speaking or expressing pain while enduring suffocation and, ultimately, cardiac arrest, they say.

Among their examples is a 1989 Texas execution during which inmate Stephen McCoy reacted violently to the toxic chemicals entering his body and began choking and seizing, despite being restrained. A male witness fainted, knocking over another witness. A state official later said a heavier dose might have been warranted.

Justices themselves appeared conflicted on the issue of lethal injection, as well as the death penalty. Despite their 7-2 vote, they issued seven separate written opinions.

Justices Anthony Scalia and Clarence Thomas agreed that the narrowness of the case would only create more death penalty lawsuits. "This never ends," said Scalia. Justice Samuel Alito disagreed, saying correct interpretation of the court's standard would not lead to "never-ending litigation."

For the first time, Justice John Paul Stevens — who voted with the court majority to reinstate executions in 1976 — said he'd changed his mind about capital punishment. "I am now convinced that this case will generate debate not only about the constitutionality of the three-drug protocol ... but also about the justification for the death penalty itself."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080628/...5KQ8gign6s0NUE

On the Net: Death Penalty Information Center: http://deathpenaltyinfo.org

Criminal Justice Legal Foundation: http://www.cjlf.org/

I'm not a religious person for the most part. However, I don't feel killing anyone is right nor is it right to kill the person that did it. 2 wrongs don't make either one right.

It would be more torture for me if I was locked up for the rest of my life, no outside contacts, not being able to do what I wanted to do in the free world....giving up my freedom for something I decided to do.

Do you think lethal injection inhumane ?
Yes - absolutely. 4 ~ 8.00%
No - far kinder then other options 33 ~ 66.00%
Depends on the circumstances 7 ~ 14.00%
Who Cares ? 6 ~ 12.00%

Voters: 50

Florida holds 1st execution since botched method
By RON WORD, Associated Press Writer
31 minutes ago

STARKE, Fla. - Florida on Tuesday carried out its first execution since a botched lethal injection procedure prompted a moratorium and state investigation. Gov. Charlie Crist's office said Mark Dean Schwab was put to death by lethal injection at 6:15 p.m. Schwab was convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing 11-year-old boy.

The execution was the initial test of Florida's new lethal injection procedure, which was instituted after Angel Diaz died in December 2006. Needles to inject the deadly chemicals into Diaz missed their mark and he suffered burns and extreme pain.

Schwab, 39, unsuccessfully challenged Florida's new execution procedure, claiming it could also cause pain and suffering. He was executed for the 1991 death of Junny Rios-Martinez of Cocoa.

Outside the prison where the execution took place, the boy's family clapped and cheered when they heard the news that Schwab had died.

More than a dozen family members wore white T-shirts with his picture on the front and with the words "JUSTICE DELAYED IS JUSTICE DENIED" across the back. Another man carried a sign that read "ROT IN HELL SCHWAB."

About 50 death penalty opponents held a brief prayer vigil, then quietly stood by about 75 yards from the family members.

Schwab was executed at the state's death chamber in Starke, which is about 40 miles southwest of Jacksonville.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080701/...S.VggIv.xH2ocA

On the Net: Junny Rios-Martinez's family MySpace page: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm...endid215919857

Texas executes Mexican-born killer
By MICHAEL GRACZYK, Associated Press Writer
17 minutes ago

HUNTSVILLE, Texas - A Mexican-born condemned prisoner was executed Tuesday night for the rape and murder of two teenage girls 15 years ago after a divided U.S. Supreme Court rejected his request for a reprieve.

"I'm sorry my actions caused you pain. I hope this brings you the closure that you seek. Never harbor hate," Jose Medellin said to those gathered to watch him die. Nine minutes later, at 9:57 p.m., he was pronounced dead.

Medellin's execution, the fifth this year in the nation's busiest capital punishment state, attracted international attention after he raised claims he wasn't allowed to consult the Mexican consulate for legal help following his arrest. State officials say he didn't ask to do so until well after he was convicted of capital murder.

Medellin, 33, was condemned for participating in the 1993 gang rape, beating and strangling of Elizabeth Pena, 16, and Jennifer Ertman, 14. He and five fellow gang members attacked the Houston girls as they were walking home on a June night, raped and tortured them for an hour, then kicked and stomped them before using a belt and shoelaces to strangle them.

Their remains were found four days later. By then, Medellin already had bragged to friends about the killings.

Pena's father, who was among the witnesses, gently tapped the glass that separated him from Medellin as he turned to leave the witness chamber after the execution.

"We feel relieved," Adolfo Pena said after leaving the prison. "Fifteen years is a long time coming."

Several dozen demonstrators, about evenly divided between favoring and opposing capital punishment, stood outside on opposite sides of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Huntsville Unit.

Medellin's attorneys contended he was denied the protections of the Vienna Convention, which calls for people arrested to have access to their home country's consular officials. "Under the circumstances, it's hard to talk about what comes next," lawyer Sandra Babcock said, noting her thoughts were with Medellin's family and the family of his victims. "But now more than ever, it's important to recall this is a case not just about one Mexican national on death row in Texas. It's also about ordinary Americans who count on the protection of the consulate when they travel abroad to strange lands. It's about the reputation of the United States as a nation that adheres to the rule of law."

In Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, where Medellin was born, a small group of his relatives condemned his execution. "Only God has the right to take a life," cousin Reyna Armendariz said.

Six of his relatives, including Armendariz, and several activists gathered earlier Tuesday in a working-class neighborhood to await word on Medellin's fate.

A large black bow and a banner that read "No to the death penalty ... may God forgive you," hung from an iron fence in front of the house where Medellin lived until moving to the United States at the age of 3. He grew up in Houston, where he learned English and attended school.

The International Court of Justice said Medellin and some 50 other Mexicans on death row around the U.S. should have new hearings in U.S. courts to determine whether the 1963 treaty was violated during their arrests. Medellin was the first among them to die.

President Bush asked states to review the cases, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled earlier this year neither the president nor the international court can force Texas to wait.

Gov. Rick Perry, Texas courts and the Texas attorney general's office all said the execution should go forward and that Medellin has had multiple legal reviews. State officials noted Medellin never invoked his consular rights under the Vienna Convention until some four years after he was convicted.

His lawyers asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday to stop the execution until legislation could be passed to formalize case reviews ordered by the International Court of Justice.

The high court said in its ruling that that possibility was too remote to justify a stay. Justice Stephen Breyer, one of four justices who issued dissenting opinions, wrote that to permit the execution would place the United States "irremediably in violation of international law and breaks our treaty promises."

Medellin's supporters said either Congress or the Texas Legislature should have been given a chance to pass a law setting up procedures for new hearings. A bill to implement the international court's ruling wasn't introduced in Congress until last month. The Texas Legislature doesn't meet until January.

On Monday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a request for a reprieve and denied his lawyers permission to file new appeals. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles also rejected requests for clemency and a 240-day reprieve.

One of Medellin's fellow gang members, Derrick O'Brien, was executed two years ago. Another, Peter Cantu, described as the ringleader of the group, is on death row. He does not have a death date.

Two others, Efrain Perez and Raul Villarreal, had their death sentences commuted to life in prison when the Supreme Court barred executions for those who were 17 at the time of their crimes. The sixth person convicted, Medellin's brother, Vernancio, was 14 at the time and is serving a 40-year prison term.

Associated Press writers Ana Ley in Huntsville and Jorge Vargas in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080806/...gBrRjk.IJH2ocA

"Only God has the right to take a life," cousin Reyna Armendariz said.

I am sure that the famlies of Elizabeth Pena and Jennifer Ertman felt the same way. Jose Medellin had a far easier death then those two children .. and he CHOSE to commit his crimes.

so glad it was taken care of.........was afraid they were gonna once again put it on hold

Illegal immigrant from Honduras executed in Texas
By MICHAEL GRACZYK, Associated Press Writer
Fri Aug 8, 5:34 AM ET

HUNTSVILLE, Texas - Pleas from an illegal immigrant from Honduras who claimed he was unfairly denied legal help from his consulate when he was arrested for a robbery-murder near Dallas weren't enough to spare him from the death chamber.

The execution Thursday evening of Heliberto Chi, 29, was the second capital punishment case in Texas this week to focus on rights of foreigners under international treaties.

"God forgive them," Chi said from the gurney. "Receive my spirit."

With a tear at the corner of his right eye, he told a cousin watching through a window that he loved him, then whispered in Spanish what appeared to be a prayer as the drugs were taking effect.

Nine minutes later, Chi was pronounced dead.

Two sons of his victim, watching through a window in an adjacent room, stood stoically. Chi had glanced at them only briefly as they and other witnesses were assembling and never addressed them.

Chi murdered his former boss, Armand Paliotta, 56, during a 2001 robbery at an Arlington men's clothing store where Chi had once worked as a tailor. An employee was wounded trying to run away and another hid among clothing racks and called 911 for help.

Chi went on the run with his 18-year-old pregnant girlfriend. She turned him in in California about six weeks later for assaulting her and told authorities he was wanted for murder in Texas.

Chi claimed his treaty rights were violated when he was extradited to Texas because he wasn't advised to contact the Honduran consulate for legal help.

On Tuesday, Mexican-born killer Jose Medellin unsuccessfully raised similar claims. His execution was delayed nearly four hours before the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his final appeal. Four of the nine justices dissented.

On Thursday, the high court rejected Chi's appeal without dissent, ruling about 2 1/2 hours before his scheduled execution time.

Unlike Medellin, executed for participating in the gruesome gang rape and murders of two teenage Houston girls 15 years ago, Chi was not among some 50 death row inmates around the country, all Mexican-born, whom the International Court of Justice said should have new hearings in U.S. courts to determine whether the 1963 Vienna Convention treaty was violated during their arrests.

President Bush asked states to review those cases and legislation to implement the process was introduced recently in Congress, but the Supreme Court ruled earlier this year neither the president nor the international court could force Texas to wait.

Chi's attorneys argued that unlike the Vienna Convention obligations with Mexico, the 1920s-era U.S. Bilateral Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Consular Rights with Honduras was specifically between the U.S. and Honduras and was self-executing, meaning it didn't require legislation to have effect. They said the treaty also conferred individual rights and incorporated international law into enforceable domestic law.

Terry O'Rourke, a lawyer on Chi's legal team who teaches international law at Houston's University of St. Thomas, said he was saddened Texas was violating international law to execute Chi. "It takes you back to a very ugly time in history in Texas when we killed people because of the color of their skin and their poverty," he said.

Chi was set to die in September, but his execution was stopped because the Supreme Court was looking into whether lethal injection procedures were unconstitutionally cruel. When the justices this year upheld the method as proper, his date was reset for Thursday.

The getaway driver at the murder scene, Hugo Sierra, who is the brother of Chi's girlfriend, is serving a life prison term.

Chi was the sixth person executed this year in the nation's busiest death penalty state. Four other Texas prisoners are set to die this month, including two more next week.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080808/...7WMhHw_JGs0NUE

Terry O'Rourke, a lawyer on Chi's legal team who teaches international law at Houston's University of St. Thomas, said he was saddened Texas was violating international law to execute Chi. "It takes you back to a very ugly time in history in Texas when we killed people because of the color of their skin and their poverty," he said.

I am pretty sure that in Honduras it is also illegal to commit murder in the course of a robbery....

Texas 7 member volunteers for execution this week
By MICHAEL GRACZYK, Associated Press Writer
Sun Aug 10, 1:50 PM ET

LIVINGSTON, Texas - Michael Rodriguez remembers the exhilaration of newfound freedom when he hid in the back of a stolen truck as he and six of his fellow convicts staged one of Texas' most notorious prison breaks.

Then he recalls seeing his photo on national TV and grasping the reality that their Hollywood-style plan to rob a Nevada casino had gone terribly awry. He and his fellow fugitives were being hunted everywhere as the killers of a police officer, Aubrey Hawkins, at a store they robbed outside Dallas.

This week, Rodriguez is set to become the first of the six surviving members of the infamous "Texas 7" — all of them now on death row — to go to the death chamber.

"I'm glad we got caught, so no one else would get hurt," Rodriguez said, discussing with a reporter for the first time his involvement in the crime spree eight years ago.

"It was so thrilling that we actually got away with it," he said of the December 2000 escape from a maximum security prison. "But after Mr. Hawkins got killed, and I saw (ABC's) Peter Jennings on the TV news with our pictures, I thought: 'Oh my God, Oh my God. Am I in trouble!'"

After some six weeks of evading an intense manhunt, the fugitives were captured in Colorado. One of the seven killed himself as authorities closed in on him.

"I'm glad it ended when it did. It would have been a mess."

Rodriguez, 45, said he welcomes this week's execution, set for Thursday.

"I have a lot of people here telling me how unfair the system is," he told The Associated Press in what he said would be his first and last media interview. "At some point in our lives, you have to have some sort of accountability. I can't see how people in my situation deny that."

Rodriguez, who first went to prison with a life sentence for arranging the 1992 slaying of his wife in San Antonio, worked for more than a year to convince the courts he was competent to drop his appeals and volunteer for execution.

"I'm just moving forward," Rodriguez said from a small visiting cage at the Polunsky Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, site of the state's death row. "Look. I'm guilty of what they said — everything."

And he said he wants the family of his former wife, Theresa, and the relatives the slain police officer "to know how truly sorry I am and I am willing to pay."

"I think it's a fair sentence," he added. "I need to pay back. I can't pay back monetarily. This is the way."

The slain police officer's wife, Lori Hawkins, calls Rodriguez's apologies "a little too late."

Rodriguez and six other inmates overpowered workers at the state prison system's Connally Unit near Kenedy in South Texas on Dec. 13, 2000, took the workers' clothes, grabbed guns from the prison armory and fled in a prison truck.

"It was an experience. It's real strange to think on that and how I got here," he said.

They drove to a nearby store, where Rodriguez's father had parked another truck for them. Raul Rodriguez later pleaded guilty to being involved in the escape plan.

They headed to Irving, a Dallas suburb, where ringleader George Rivas, a convicted robber serving 18 life terms, had a plan to rob a sporting goods store by posing as employees of its security service. They got uniforms from a used clothing store in Houston and radios from an electronics store holdup.

"George Rivas thought he planned everything," Rodriguez said.

While some gang members scrambled to find materials to restrain store employees and others gathered weapons, a woman outside noticed the activity and called police.

Hawkins caught the call. He'd been having Christmas Eve dinner with his wife and son a few blocks away.

Patrick Murphy, a convicted rapist who was posted as a lookout, tried to warn his fellow escapees that a police officer was driving into the parking lot but their radios "didn't pick up real well."

Rodriguez said that when he saw the police car he hid under sleeping bags they had stuffed with stolen guns and money.

"I just heard shots — pop, pop, pop. I thought it was the police. But no, it was us," he said.

Afterward, he went to the police car, where the officer appeared to already be dead.

The gang went to Colorado, were Rivas used cash from the store robbery to buy a big RV, and even went to a police supply store, posing as a lawman, and ordered body armor to be used in the Nevada casino heist.

On Jan. 22, 2001, a SWAT team surrounded the gang at a trailer park outside Colorado Springs, Colo.

"I'd never seen anything like that in my life," Rodriguez said of the police firepower.

Rivas, Rodriguez, Garcia and Randy Halprin were arrested. Larry James Harper, another convicted rapist, committed suicide. Murphy and Donald Newbury, a convicted robber, surrendered two days later in Colorado Springs.

He blamed the original crime that landed him in prison for life, the 1992 murder-for-hire slaying of his wife, on "the lust of a coed" he met at what then was Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos.

"My wife was a wonderful person and didn't deserve this. I fell for a coed. It was stupid. I sit in my cell and think: How the heck did I get here?

"But I was a willing participant. You can call it lust... I really thought I would get off, like a lot of people who are deluded."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080810/...C2DYrC5iBH2ocA


Of course since he wanted to take responsibilty for his actions and honor the sentence handed down ... some people took it as a sign of mental illness.

Texas 7" fugitive who dropped appeals executed
By MICHAEL GRACZYK, Associated Press Wrier
Thu Aug 14, 8:08 PM ET

HUNTSVILLE, Texas - A member of the infamous "Texas 7" gang of escaped fugitives was executed Thursday for killing a Dallas-area police officer during their weeks on the run.

Michael Rodriguez, who had dropped all appeals and volunteered for lethal injection, apologized profusely to the officer's widow and his own former sister-in-law before the lethal injection. He had been serving a life sentence for killing his wife at the time of the 2000 escape. "My punishment is nothing compared to the pain and suffering I've brought you," Rodriguez said. "I'm not strong enough to ask for forgiveness. I ask the Lord to forgive. I've done horrible things that brought sorrow and pain to these wonderful people," he said, looking directly at the women.

"I'm sorry, so sorry," he said. As the drugs took effect, Rodriguez, 45, was praying in a whisper. "I'm ready to go, Lord," he said.

Seven minutes later, at 6:20 p.m. CDT, he was pronounced dead. Outside the prison, several dozen police officers stood at attention while the execution was carried out, their hands clasped in front of them.

Rodriguez, the first of the six surviving "Texas 7" band to be put to death, pushed to have his punishment carried out for more than two years. "Let's do the right thing — for once," he explained in a recent interview with The Associated Press. "My parents raised me to be accountable."

A federal judge held competency hearings to ensure Rodriguez could make such a decision. After the judge approved, the execution was stalled while the U.S. Supreme Court considered challenges that lethal injection was unconstitutionally cruel. After the justices earlier this year ruled the method was not improper, Rodriguez's execution date was set.

Rodriguez and six fellow inmates broke out of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's Connally Unit in December 2000 by overpowering some workers there, stealing their clothes and breaking into the prison armory to get guns. Their escape was aided by his father, who parked a getaway vehicle nearby, enabling them to ditch a stolen prison truck. Rodriguez's father later was convicted of helping them. "Rodriguez was one of the more violent ones during the escape," Toby Shook, the former Dallas County assistant district attorney who prosecuted him for capital murder, recalled. "He would put these shanks in people's ears while they were being tied up, making threats."

Two weeks after the break, on Christmas Eve evening, the fugitives shot and killed Irving policeman Aubrey Hawkins during the robbery of a sporting goods store that netted them $70,000, more guns and the IDs of employees.

Rodriguez acknowledged taking the fatally wounded officer's gun and pulling him from his patrol car. Shook said evidence showed he also was among the gang shooting at Hawkins and a gun that was left behind at the scene belonged to Rodriguez. Evidence showed a bullet from that gun was lodged in the dashboard of the officer's car. "It was headed straight for him," Shook said. "So he was right in front of him and firing directly at him."

Hawkins was shot 11 times and was run over with his own car.

"The memory of Officer Aubrey Hawkins, his dedication to duty and family are cherished by the Irving Police Department and others that knew Aubrey," the department said in a statement released Thursday. "His legacy and his service are not forgotten. Our police family suffered a devastating loss through Aubrey's ultimate sacrifice."

A month Hawkins' murder, Rodriguez and three of the prisoners were captured at a trailer park outside Colorado Springs, Colo. A fifth escapee, Larry Harper, killed himself as police closed in. Two others surrendered two days later, ending one of Texas' most notorious prison breaks. "I'm glad we got caught, so no one else would get hurt," Rodriguez said from death row.

His five remaining accomplices — George Rivas, Randy Halprin, Donald Newbury, Joseph Garcia and Patrick Murphy — joined him on death row. Appeals for each remain in the courts and none has an execution date. "The hardest thing is the constant presence of it," said Hawkins' widow, Lori. "It's not like there's one person involved. There are six."

Rodriguez's earlier murder conviction was for paying a hit man to kill his wife, Theresa, in 1992 in San Antonio. He said it was the result of an infatuation with a younger woman who was a student at a university in San Marcos where Rodriguez also was taking classes. "It was stupid," Rodriguez acknowledged.

Rodriguez was the eighth convicted killer executed this year in the nation's busiest capital punishment state and the fourth this month. Another is set for next week.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080815/...eWIOQxq6hH2ocA

Texas executes killer in 2002 triple slaying
By MICHAEL GRACZYK, Associated Press Writer
Fri Oct 17, 5:02 am ET

HUNTSVILLE, Texas – Condemned killer Kevin Watts quietly went to his death as the criminal justice system he said he detested executed him for a triple slaying in San Antonio 6 1/2 years ago.

The street gangster received a lethal injection Thursday for fatally shooting three people in the holdup of a Korean restaurant. Watts, 27, had confessed to the shootings after which one of the victims' newlywed wife was abducted and raped.

Watts had denounced the sentence at the conclusion of his trial in 2003.

Then earlier this year, returning to the court where a jury convicted him of capital murder and decided he should die, Watts confronted the judge scheduling his execution with an obscenity-laced tirade complaining about what he contended was a racist justice system.

But strapped to the death chamber gurney Thursday, his demeanor was subdued. He spoke softly, telling friends he appreciated their love and support and asked them to forgive him.

"I'm out of here, man," he concluded. "I'm gone. Keep me in your hearts."

He was pronounced dead at 6:17 p.m.

Watts walked into the Sam Won Gardens restaurant the morning of March 1, 2002, after a night of drinking and drugs and demanded money. He ordered the manager and two cooks to kneel on the kitchen floor and face a wall. Then he shot each of them in the head.

He forced the manager's wife of two months to retrieve the wallet and keys from her dying husband, grabbed about $100 from a cash register, then drove off with her in the couple's SUV.

The truck was spotted at a nearby apartment complex and police arrested Watts about three hours after the shootings.

None of the victims' relatives attended Watt's execution.

Watts was from San Jose, Calif. He said when he was about 14 his mother tried to get him away from gangs there and moved him to San Antonio to live with an aunt. But he hooked up with gangs in the Alamo city, dropping out of high school in the ninth grade, he said.

His record included misdemeanor convictions for evading arrest, criminal mischief, trespassing, marijuana possession and driving while intoxicated. He also had a weapons case against him as a 16-year-old.

Watts became the second Texas inmate executed this week and the 11th this year. Two more are set to die next week in the nation's most active capital punishment state.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081017/...iZJtYH8HnLLJ94

2 convicted killers executed in Texas, Oklahoma
Michael Graczyk, Associated Press Writer
1 hr 24 mins ago

HUNTSVILLE, Texas – Two condemned killers were put to death Thursday evening in Oklahoma and Texas, becoming the nation's third and fourth executions of the year.

Reginald Perkins, a convicted rapist and suspected serial killer, was executed in Texas for strangling and robbing his stepmother in Fort Worth more than eight years ago. About an hour before he was executed, Perkins summoned a prison official to his cell and gave him a statement professing his innocence.

"They didn't link me to nothing. I did not kill my stepmom," he said. "I loved her. Texas is going to kill an innocent man."

Perkins was pronounced dead at 6:24 p.m., eight minutes after the lethal drugs were administered.

The victim's family said in a statement that they were grateful for the execution. "God will deal with him now," they said. "What a great state to live in to know justice was served."

Perkins was the second convicted killer executed in as many days in the nation's most active death penalty state. Three inmates are scheduled to die in Texas next week.

Perkins' lawyer, William Harris, said his appeals had been exhausted. The state Board of Pardons and Paroles on Wednesday unanimously rejected a clemency request to commute the sentence.

Perkins was condemned for the slaying of 64-year-old Gertie Perkins, whose body was found in the trunk of her Cadillac in 2000. He led his father and police to the body.

He had served time on rape and attempted rape convictions of two 12-year-old girls in Ohio. He was also a suspect in the strangling of two Cleveland women and a man whose daughter Perkins was convicted of trying to rape.

A DNA database last year also tied Perkins to the 1991 strangling of two Fort Worth women.

Perkins had said he was framed and that he pleaded guilty to the rape charges because of bad advice from a lawyer.


In Oklahoma, a man convicted of beating a convenience store clerk to death with a baseball bat nearly 14 years ago was put to death at Oklahoma State Penitentiary.

Darwin Demond Brown, 32, apologized to the family of the victim as they watched, and thanked his family for their love and support. "I apologize for anybody I hurt," Brown said. "I'm sorry to everybody."

He was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m., six minutes after receiving the lethal injection.

The victim's wife, Angie Houser-Yost, said she planned to attend the executions of Brown's co-defendants who also are on death row. "What they did, they have caused a lot of pain to a lot of people," Houser-Yost said. "I just wish his parents the best of luck."

Brown's attorney, James Hankins, said his client had exhausted all of his appeals. The state Pardon and Parole Board denied clemency for Brown on Jan. 7.

Brown and three other men were convicted of killing Richard Yost during a February 1995 store robbery in Tulsa. Yost's bound and battered body was discovered in the store's walk-in refrigerator by a customer.

His lawyer had not denied that Brown participated in the killing, but appealed to the parole board to spare his client's life because he was 18 when it happened.

During the trial, prosecutors had argued the killing was particularly grisly and played a surveillance tape from the store in which Yost could be heard screaming for help after being dragged into the store's cooler.

Brown's co-defendants, Michael L. Wilson, 33, and Billy D. Alverson, 37, were sentenced to death and are awaiting execution. A third defendant who was 17 at the time of the killing, Richard J. Harjo, was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Associated Press Writer Sean Murphy in McAlester, Okla., contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090123/...hjVZbOcpWs0NUE