09/28/07 (TX):
Texas Executions Continue Despite Supreme Court Review
|
|
America's busiest death penalty state executed another inmate, just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court said it would review whether the lethal injection method most states use is 'cruel and unusual'.
Michael Richard, 49, was put to death for the 1986 shooting of Marguerite Lucille Dixon, a 53-year-old nurse and mother of seven. Richard had been released from his second prison term eight weeks before Dixon was raped and killed inside her home.
Another execution, the 27th in Texas this year, remained scheduled for later the same week but was postponed (see below) though officials said Tuesday's announcement by the U.S. Supreme Court would not affect the state's execution docket.
"We will go forward with our interpretation of the law," Gov. Rick Perry had said.
After the Supreme Court's announcement, Richard's attorneys asked the justices to halt his execution in the meantime, but the court rejected that appeal.
Ten of the 37 states that use the three-drug cocktail under review by the Supreme Court have suspended its use after opponents alleged it was ineffective and cruel, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. But Texas is unlikely to halt lethal injections unless the Supreme Court issues a blanket stay.
"We are monitoring this, but until the court rules or gives direction, nothing changes from our perspective," said Allison Castle, a Perry spokeswoman.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott declined to comment.
If the three-drug cocktail were outlawed, it would not be the first time Texas adapted to changing rules on how to humanely execute inmates. Criminals who committed capital crimes died by hanging in Texas from 1819 to 1923, said Jason Clark, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
On Feb. 8, 1924, the state executed five people in the electric chair, the method it would use to kill 361 inmates through 1964.
Richard was convicted and sentenced to death in 1987. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals threw out his conviction in 1992 because jurors were not allowed to consider evidence that Richard had been abused as a child. In 1995, a second jury convicted him and sentenced him to die.
At least one psychological assessment put his IQ at 64, with 70 considered the threshold of retardation.
The U.S. Supreme Court turned down requests to halt the execution because of claims Richard was mentally retarded. Attorneys then asked for a reprieve because the court had decided to consider the lethal injection matter, but almost two hours later, the justices rejected the appeal.
The U.S. Supreme Court later halted the execution of a man who killed his parents nine years ago.
Carlton Turner Jr.'s lawyers had filed appeals to tie his case to a Supreme Court review of lethal injection procedures. Turner's execution had been seen as an indicator of whether lethal injections would continue in the nation's busiest death penalty state after justices agreed earlier this week to consider whether lethal injections in Kentucky were unconstitutionally cruel.
The court said in a brief order that it had granted his stay of execution but made no mention of its reasons for stopping the punishment. It came more than four hours after he could have been executed and less than two hours before the death warrant would have expired at midnight CDT.
© X-Pro 2007
|
|
