History > 2006 > USA > Death penalty (III)

Texas Department of Criminal Justice
Scheduled Executions
added 26.10.2006
http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/statistics/deathrow/drowlist/johnsonm.jpg

Killer of 5 Florida Students Is Executed

October 26, 2006
The New York Times
By ABBY GOODNOUGH

GAINESVILLE, Fla., Oct. 25 — The serial killer who gruesomely murdered five college students here in 1990 was put to death on Wednesday by lethal injection, and relatives of his victims said afterward that they could finally feel the beginnings of relief.

Danny H. Rolling, 52, was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. at Florida State Prison in Starke, about 30 miles northeast of Gainesville. Witnesses said he stared toward them and sang a hymn-type song just before the drugs were administered.

“Maybe now that we don’t have this on us,” said Dianna Hoyt, the stepmother of one victim, “we can try and relax and live with the memories we have of our children and be at peace.”

Mr. Rolling was 36 when he arrived in Gainesville shortly before the fall semester began at the University of Florida, a drifter with a criminal past who pitched a tent in some woods near campus. He followed two freshman roommates, Sonja Larson, 18, and Christina Powell, 17, to their off-campus apartment, raped Miss Powell, repeatedly stabbed both women with a hunting knife and mutilated their bodies.

The police discovered them on Aug. 26, after Miss Powell’s parents reported that their daughter was not answering her door or phone. Later that night, the police found Christa Hoyt, 18, dead in her off-campus duplex. Mr. Rolling had raped and stabbed her, severed her head and placed it on a shelf.

The next day, Tracy Paules and Manuel Taboada, both 23, were discovered stabbed to death in their apartment, not far from where the other killings took place. Mr. Rolling attacked Mr. Taboada, a former high school football player, as he slept, then killed Miss Paules. All of the victims were University of Florida students except for Miss Hoyt, who was attending a nearby community college.

Gainesville, a small city of pretty homes and live oaks, was crippled with dread. The campus shut down for a week and many of the 34,000 students scrambled home, some never to return. Others bought baseball bats and Mace, put triple locks on their doors or slept in shifts.

Helicopters with searchlights soared over the city by night. Sorority houses hired full-time security guards, gun sales soared and some townspeople never left their doors unlocked again.

“There aren’t words to explain the fear,” said Jane Hamby of Pomona Park, Fla., whose son was attending the university at the time and who traveled to the prison for the execution, standing in a field across the road. “We didn’t know what his next move would be, but the ones of us who could get to our children got them out of Gainesville.”

A long investigation ensued, with 6,500 leads and 1,500 pieces of evidence. At first, the police focused on a mentally ill student who had been evicted from the apartment complex where Miss Paules and Mr. Taboada lived.

But in January 1991, the police discovered Mr. Rolling in a county jail south of Gainesville, awaiting trial in a supermarket robbery. He initially denied committing the murders, but DNA tests ultimately showed he was responsible. He pleaded guilty on the eve of his trial in 1994, telling the judge, “There are some things that you just can’t run from.”

Mr. Rolling was also believed guilty of three slayings in his hometown, Shreveport, La., but was never tried for those crimes. He attributed his behavior to abuse by his father, a police officer, and on an evil alter ego.

In prison, he drew disturbing pictures and wrote a graphic book, “The Making of a Serial Killer,” with a woman who was his fiancée for a time. For his last meal, he asked for lobster tail and butterfly shrimp, prison officials said.

Across the road from the prison, dozens of onlookers gathered into groups for and against the death penalty. It was perhaps the largest turnout for an execution here since that of Ted Bundy, who was put to death at Florida State Prison in 1989 after being suspected of murdering more than 30 young women across the nation.

Two University of Florida students who had driven up from Gainesville said they were generally against the death penalty, but not in Mr. Rolling’s case. They were only 6 when the murders happened, they said, but read all about them on the Internet after enrolling at the university.

“We feel connected to these murders,” said Allison Kirkpatrick, 22, a senior. “It was a random year, it was random people, but it could have been our year, it could have been us.”

A wall near campus is painted with the names of the victims, hearts and “Remember 1990.”

Mr. Rolling was the third death row inmate executed here in recent weeks, and like the others he had filed a late appeal claiming that the lethal injection procedure was so painful as to be unconstitutional.

But Bill Cervone, the state attorney for the Eighth Judicial Circuit and a witness to the execution, said Mr. Rolling’s death did not seem punishing enough.

“To watch his death in such an antiseptic and clinical environment convinces me that the punishment does not fit that crime,” Mr. Cervone said. “We are, however, a society of laws, and the law governed what we carried out this evening.”

Laurie Lahey, the sister of Tracy Paules, said she had been reluctant to witness Mr. Rolling’s death but felt exhilarated afterward.

“Once everything quiets down, I’ll think about Tracy and I’ll be sad,” she said. “But right now, he’s gone. He’s gone.”

    Killer of 5 Florida Students Is Executed, NYT, 26.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/26/us/26execute.html?hp&ex=1161921600&en=0da3cf4446fcf364&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Florida executes serial killer of 5 students

Updated 10/25/2006 6:36 PM ET
AP
USA Today

STARKE, Fla. (AP) — Danny Harold Rolling, Florida's most notorious serial killer since Ted Bundy, was executed by injection Wednesday for butchering five college students in a ghastly string of slayings that terrorized Gainesville in 1990.
Rolling, 52, was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. ET, more than 16 years after his killing rampage at the start of the University of Florida's fall semester.

The bodies of his five college student victims, some mutilated, posed and sexually assaulted, were found over a three-day period in late August 1990, just as the University of Florida's fall semester was beginning.

The killing spree touched off a massive manhunt, plunging the laid-back college town into panic. Students fled and residents armed themselves.

The attention surrounding Rolling's execution has reopened old wounds in Gainesville and for families of the victims.

Dianna Hoyt, whose stepdaughter Christa Hoyt was killed by Rolling and decapitated, planned to watch the execution at Florida State Prison in Starke.

"This is a tough thing, but is a necessary thing to go through," she said. "This is the final thing we can do for Christa and for my late husband and her dad, Gary."

"It is very hard for us to see someone else die," she said. "But, he deserves it."

Tracy Paules' mother and sister also planned to watch her killer receive the lethal injection.

"If you see us crying, it is not for Rolling, but for Tracy," said her mother, Ricky Paules.

Rolling, a police officer's son from Shreveport, La., arrived in Gainesville on a Greyhound bus, pitched a tent in the woods near campus and set out to become, as he would say later, a "superstar" among criminals.

He also robbed a bank and stole a car before leaving Gainesville the day after the last of the bodies were discovered. Belongings he left at the campsite in the woods and DNA taken after a later arrest for robbery would eventually link him to the slayings.

When he was finally scheduled to go on trial in 1994, Rolling shocked the courtroom by pleading guilty to the five slayings.

"There are some things you just can't run from, this being one of those," Rolling told Circuit Judge Stan R. Morris, who accepted the pleas and found him guilty and later sentenced him to death.

Bundy, suspected in the deaths and disappearances of 36 women, was electrocuted Jan. 24, 1989, in the same death chamber where Rolling will die by lethal injection. The case was still fresh in the minds of many when Rolling's killings began the following year in roughly the same area as some of Bundy's.

The bodies of Sonja Larson, 18, and Christina Powell, 17, were found stabbed to death on a Sunday afternoon in 1990, in a town house just off the University of Florida campus.

Christa Hoyt, 18, was found decapitated the next morning in her isolated duplex.

Tracy Paules and Manny Taboada, both 23, were discovered dead a day later in the apartment they shared.

For months, a large task force of local, state and federal agents followed hundreds of leads and took blood samples from dozens of men. They did not know that Rolling was already behind bars in Marion County for robbing a grocery store.

Then authorities in Rolling's hometown of Shreveport, investigating a triple slaying that they believe he committed, suggested that police should check out the drifter and ex-con.

Throughout the years, Rolling has insisted he was not as atrocious as many thought.

In a letter to The Associated Press in 2002, Rolling wrote: "I assure you I am not a salivating ogre. Granted ... time's past; the dark era of long ago — Dr. Jeckle & Mr. Hyde did strike up & down the corridors of insanety."

Rolling claimed he had good and bad personalities.

He blamed the murders on abuse he suffered as a child from his police officer father and his treatment in prison. He said he killed one person for every year he was behind bars. He served a total of eight years in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi before the killings.

Rolling is the 63rd inmate to be put to death since Florida resumed executions in 1979 and the third this year.

    Florida executes serial killer of 5 students, UT, 25.10.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-10-25-college-killer-execution_x.htm

Convict executed for slayings of parents, uncle

Oct. 25, 2006, 10:20PM
By MICHAEL GRACZYK
Associated Press
Chron.com/Houston Chronicle

HUNTSVILLE — Gregory Summers was executed today for initiating a murder-for-hire plot that authorities said led to the fatal stabbing of his parents and an uncle.

The lethal injection of Summers, 48, came more than seven years after the execution of Andrew Cantu, convicted of taking the $10,000 offer and fatally stabbing Gene and Helen Summers, both 64, and Billy Mack Summers, 60. Their home in Abilene was set on fire after they were attacked and their bodies were found in the rubble.

Gregory Summers was the 22nd inmate executed this year in Texas, the nation's most active death penalty state. At least three other inmates have execution dates over the next four weeks.

Asked by Warden Thomas Prasifka if he had a final statement while strapped to the Texas death chamber gurney, Summer replied, "No." Eight minutes later, at 9:16 p.m. CDT, he was pronounced dead.

Attorneys for Summers tried today to block the punishment by challenging the constitutionality of the lethal injection method, accusing prosecutors of hiding evidence and raising questions about testimony from a trial witness who implicated Summers.

The U.S. Supreme Court three weeks ago refused to review his case. Additional appeals delayed the execution about three hours past its scheduled time of 6 p.m. CDT. Three appeals went to the high court late today, and all were rejected.

"When I went to trial, all they proved was there were three murders," Summers said in recent interview on death row. "But they can't show I did this with Cantu because it never happened."

Gene and Helen Summers adopted their son when he was 3 days old. He was their only child. Prosecutors said Summers had hoped to collect $24,000 in insurance benefits. Relatives told authorities Summers was having financial problems and Gene Summers finally had decided to stop bailing him out financially.

Billy Mack Summers, Gene Summers' brother, was mentally retarded and was living with the couple when they all were killed in June 1990.

"These were real people that we all loved very, very much," Arbie McAliley, the victims' niece, said after watching Summers die. "Justice was served, we believe in our hearts. There was nothing inhumane about this at all tonight.

"He got a better treatment than what he gave our three loved ones. It was brutal what they did. The only regrets we have is we had to sit and wait for something we knew was coming."

About 70 witnesses testified for the prosecution at Summers' trial, which was moved from Abilene because of publicity and held in Denton, about 185 miles to the east.

"Using the West Texas vernacular, they didn't have a dog in this hunt," Miles LeBlanc, one of the trial prosecutors, said of the Denton County jurors who convicted Summers and decided he should die.

"They didn't know this guy from Adam. And they believed, because of the evidence we were able to present, that this guy secured the services of Cantu to kill his parents and his disabled uncle, and after committing the crime set the house on fire to cover it up."

Cantu, a paroled burglar at the time, was supposed to find his payoff in a dresser drawer at the Summers' Abilene home, but no money was there.

Summers said he knew Cantu's brother, who had worked for his father. A tip to police from Cantu's brother led to the arrest of Cantu and two companions. Summers became a suspect after relatives told authorities about his money troubles. Police also received a tip on a Crimestoppers telephone hot line about Summers' scheme.

Two men who accompanied Cantu the night of the slayings testified against him as part of a plea bargain. They told how Cantu slipped through a back window, stabbed Gene Summers nine times in the chest, his wife eight times and Billy Mack Summers seven times, then set the house on fire. Cantu denied involvement and blamed the companions, who also testified Cantu identified Greg Summers as the instigator.

Prosecutors also showed how Summers previously collected insurance payoffs from fires at his grandmother's house and a vehicle. At his trial, Summers' two ex-wives testified about his violence toward them and his four children and how they feared him.

Summers said from death row he loved his parents but described other relatives as "estranged."

Cantu wasn't the first man approached by Summers to carry out the killings, according to testimony. And a fourth man in the car with Cantu the night of the slayings left when he learned of the activities planned for that night. Both also testified against Summers.

"There was not one crucial piece of evidence," said Kent Sutton, another of the prosecutors. "It was the totality of the evidence. It was the overwhelming amount of evidence."

Greg Summers http://www.sfsonline.cjb.net

Texas execution schedule http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/scheduledexecutions.htm

    Convict executed for slayings of parents, uncle, Chron.com/Houston Chronicle, 25.10.2006, http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4287904.html

Murder - For - Hire Convict Faces Execution

October 25, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:57 a.m. ET
The New York Times

LIVINGSTON, Texas (AP) -- Gregory Summers remembers making funeral arrangements for his parents and an uncle, all fatally stabbed and then burned when their Abilene home was set ablaze.

''I went to pieces,'' he said of the deaths 16 years ago of Gene and Helen Summers, who adopted him when he was 3 days old. ''My parents were the greatest.''

But authorities determined Summers arranged for their slayings to collect insurance money, offering $10,000 to another man to kill them. A jury sentenced him to death.

Summers, 48, was set to die Wednesday, following the execution seven years ago of Andrew Cantu, the man who carried out the slayings.

Authorities said the 1990 slayings were the result of Summers' parents' frustration with bailing their son out of his financial problems and Greg Summers' attempt to get $24,000 in life insurance.

''His father had come to the end of his rope with Greg and was starting to cut him off financially,'' said Kent Sutton, who prosecuted Summers. ''Greg was going to inherit everything and that was one of the reasons he wanted the house burned.''

Prosecutors also showed how Summers previously collected insurance payoffs from fires at his grandmother's house and a vehicle.

''Greg was pure evil,'' said Miles LeBlanc, Sutton's prosecutor partner. ''He'd been bleeding them dry for money over the years, and when he realized he couldn't get any more out of them, he figured he could get their insurance.''

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal from Summers, refusing three weeks ago to review his case. His attorneys, however, returned to the courts, trying to halt the punishment by challenging the constitutionality of the state's lethal injection method.

''He was so cruel in what he did to them and he needs to pay,'' said Brenda Steele, who lost her aunt and two uncles. ''They loved Greg and they overlooked a lot of things they probably shouldn't have.''

Cantu, 31, was executed in 1999 for fatally stabbing Summers' parents, both 64, and Gene Summers' mentally retarded brother, Billy Mack Summers, 60, then setting their home on fire. Cantu denied involvement and blamed the killings on two companions who testified against him.

''We were able to find enough circumstantial evidence to piece together a strong case,'' LeBlanc said. ''Greg Summers earned his conviction.''

At his trial, Summers' two ex-wives testified about his violence toward them and his four children and how they feared him. From death row, Summers described family members as ''estranged.''

    Murder - For - Hire Convict Faces Execution, NYT, 25.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Texas-Execution.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Killer of Va. family sentenced to death

Posted 10/23/2006 10:58 AM ET
AP
USA Today

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A judge sentenced the convicted killer of a Richmond family to death Monday for his role in a bloody crime spree that left four other people dead.

Circuit Judge Beverly Snukals followed the jury's recommendation in imposing the ultimate punishment on Ricky Jovan Gray for the random New Year's Day slayings of musician Bryan Harvey, 49, his wife and two young daughters.

The four were found in the basement of their burning home. Authorities said they had been bound, beaten with a hammer, stabbed and their throats had been cut.

"I cannot pretend to understand the loss of your loved ones ... I sincerely apologize," Gray said in court as Harvey family members blinked back tears. "I beg you to forgive me."

Gray, 29, was convicted of capital murder in August. Snukals sentenced him to death for the murders of the two children, Stella, 9, and Ruby, 4, and gave him life sentences for the slayings of Bryan Harvey and the family as a whole.

Gray and his nephew, Ray Joseph Dandridge, both of Arlington, killed the Harveys as part of a violent rampage that included the slaying of a second Richmond family less than one week later, authorities said.

Dandridge, also 29, pleaded guilty last month to three counts of capital murder for the Jan. 6 killings of Percyell Tucker, 55, his wife, Mary Baskerville-Tucker, 47, and her daughter, Ashley Baskerville, 21. The men said Ashley Baskerville was an accomplice in the Harvey slayings.

Gray confessed to the Nov. 5 killing of his 35-year-old wife, Treva Terrell Gray, in Washington, Pa., about 20 miles south of Pittsburgh. In his confession, Gray said he beat his wife to death in their bed with a pipe while Dandridge held her down. The two also are persons of interest in another killing on Dec. 18 in Culpeper.

Bryan Harvey was a guitarist and singer for the rock duo House of Freaks, which released five albums between 1987 and 1995. His wife, Kathryn Harvey, co-owned a quirky toy and novelty store called World of Mirth and was the half-sister of actor Steven Culp, who played Rex Van De Kamp on "Desperate Housewives."

    Killer of Va. family sentenced to death, UT, 23.10.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-10-23-richmond-slayings_x.htm

Cheating the needle: mom says sister knew of suicide thoughts

Friday, October 20, 2006
Waco Tribune-Herald
By Mike Anderson

Convicted murderer Michael Dewayne Johnson met death on his own terms early Thursday, avoiding both the executioner’s needle and the eyes of relatives of the Lorena man he was condemned for killing.

In an exclusive interview with the Tribune-Herald, Johnson’s mother, Patricia, said he told his sister, Michelle, during a visit on Wednesday that he was thinking about killing himself.

Reached in her Livingston hotel room Thursday afternoon, Patricia Johnson remained convinced her son was not guilty in the 1995 shooting death of Jeff Wetterman at his family-owned gas station and convenience store.

“They tried my son for someone else’s deed,” Johnson said. “They had a confession but they ignored it. My son killed himself this morning so they couldn’t have the satisfaction of seeing him die.”

When Michael Johnson took his life less than 15 hours before his scheduled execution, he used his own blood to write a final message on his cell wall: “I didn’t shoot him.”

Sources familiar with the circumstances of Johnson’s apparent suicide, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitive situation, said published reports that he had written “I didn’t do it” were incorrect.

After speaking to the Tribune-Herald, Patricia Johnson asked a reporter not to print that Michelle knew of Michael Johnson’s planned suicide, for fear of reprisals. She declined to answer further questions about her son.

Johnson, 29, committed suicide by cutting his throat and arm in his death-row cell, state prison officials said.

Guards at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, found Johnson lying unresponsive in a pool of blood about 2:45 a.m., said Michelle Lyons, a spokeswoman with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. He was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 3:40 a.m., Lyons said.

Wetterman’s widow, Trish Wetterman McLean, said she was angry Thursday when she first learned of Johnson’s death.

She and Wetterman family members had planned to attend the execution so Johnson would have to face them one more time, but Johnson cheated them of that, she said.

“If he was going to punk out like that, why didn’t he do it 10 years ago and save us a lot of heartache and the state a lot of money?” she said. “But after giving a little thought, I’m glad it’s over. We won’t have to read about it in the paper or see it on television.”

Life for a tank of gas

Johnson was sentenced to death in a Waco court for shooting Wetterman during a gas theft at the store near an Interstate 35 off-ramp in Lorena.

On Sept. 10, 1995, Johnson, then 18, pulled up in a stolen Cadillac with fellow Balch Springs native David Noel Vest, 17. They planned to steal a tank of gas, according to trial testimony. Wetterman came out to greet the men, and Johnson shot him in the face, according to court testimony.

Vest pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery and later testified against Johnson. Vest had to stipulate to the crime in court, which Johnson and his attorney said amounted to Vest confessing that he pulled the trigger. Vest completed his eight-year prison sentence in 2003.

In the days leading to his execution, Johnson had not asked for a last meal, nor had he requested for anyone to witness the execution.

Lyons, though, said that is not unheard of among prisoners and does not necessarily indicate one is contemplating suicide.

“(Suicide) is an issue we take seriously,” Lyons said. “In this case there were no indicators.”

Johnson was the seventh person on death row to commit suicide since Texas resumed executions in 1982.

On ‘death watch’

Lyons said Johnson had been on a “death watch” since about 36 hours before his execution, scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday. He was kept by himself in a cell and was checked every 15 minutes. During the 2:30 a.m. check, Johnson talked with guards and was preparing to eat breakfast, she said.

Johnson’s wounds, to his right jugular vein and an artery inside his right elbow, were apparently caused by a knife fashioned from a sharpened piece of metal or razor blade attached to a Popsicle stick, Lyons said.

An autopsy has been ordered on Johnson, though the preliminary investigation points towards suicide, said state Inspector General John Moriarty, whose office is investigating the death. Moriarty said investigators found letters in the cell to relatives that indicated he was planning suicide.

Attorney ‘shocked’

Johnson’s attorney, Greg White, said he also believed that Vest, not his client, had killed Wetterman. He also said prosecutors had withheld the information, which could have been used to impeach Vest.

McLennan County prosecutors, however, have said the wording was routine for pleadings by co-defendants in cases involving murder and that appeals courts have long upheld the practice. They added that the documents were presented in court, when defense attorneys were present.

White said Thursday he was shocked by Johnson’s death and that he had seen no clue he was contemplating suicide. Though several appeals at the state and federal level had been denied, White said two remained pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, and he stayed up until 2 a.m. Thursday working on a new state appeal.

“I had no idea whatsoever,” White said. “He seemed to be optimistic we had good arguments to make.”

White added that he was baffled how Johnson could have managed to kill himself while on death watch.

“He was the only person they had to watch, their main concern that night,” he said. “How can he stab himself in the neck and not scream? How could nobody hear? I’m not saying that couldn’t happen, but someone needs to look into that.”

‘He did them a favor’

Thursday morning, a group of friends and family members gathered at Wetterman McLean’s home near Hewitt to discuss Johnson’s death. Some of the group, including Lacy-Lakeview City Manager Mike Nicoletti, had planned to travel to Huntsville to witness the execution.

Nicoletti, who knew Wetterman from his store and came to know Wetterman McLean while investigating the murder as a Lorena police officer, said he too was surprised by Johnson’s death.

“I’ve been telling the family that he did them a favor,” Nicoletti said. “This was going to be a very emotional, very difficult day for them to go through, and now they don’t have to go through that.”

Nicoletti added, “I don’t think he wanted to face this family, and that’s just another sign how guilty he was. There was no redemption for him. But though the family can never get Jeff Wetterman back, they’ll never have to see Michael Johnson again.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

    Cheating the needle: mom says sister knew of suicide thoughts, Waco Tribune-Herald, 20.10.2006, http://www.wacotrib.com/news/content/news/stories/2006/10/20/10202006wacjohnsonsuicide.html

Suicide ends years of waiting, murder victim's widow says

Published: October 20, 2006
The Associated Press
The International Herald Tribune



LIVINGSTON, Texas

At first Trish Wetterman McLean felt cheated. But when the man convicted of killing her husband committed suicide the day he was supposed to be executed, she says he probably did her a favor.

"I was very angry at first," McLean said Friday, a day after condemned prisoner Michael Johnson killed himself by slashing his neck and arm with a sharp piece of metal in his death row cell.

The suicide came about 15 hours before Johnson was to receive lethal injection for the 1995 shooting death of her husband Jeff Wetterman, 27, at the family-run convenience store in Lorena, about 12 miles (19 kilometers) south of Waco.

McLean had planned to be among those watch Johnson die Thursday evening and found some solace in knowing he knew she'd be present in the death chamber.

"We anticipated the trip for 11 years," she said. "I didn't want him to think that we were going to forget about this. It was still a very big deal to us. I was determined to watch him die.

"But in the end, he's still not here. And he died in a much more painful manner than what the state would have done."

Johnson, 29, was found in a pool of blood and unresponsive at 2:45 a.m. by officers making routine checks on him every 15 minutes at the Polunsky Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Fifteen minutes earlier, he was talking to prison staff and awaiting breakfast.

Johnson was taken to a hospital in Livingston, a few miles away, where he was pronounced dead about an hour after he was found.

"My concern now is how he could have done this at the prison," she said.

Under corrections department procedures, officers begin making 15-minute checks on the prisoner within 36 hours of a scheduled execution. The inmate's cell also is routinely searched every 72 hours for contraband.

An investigation by the agency's Office of Inspector General probably would take several weeks, prison spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said Friday. Authorities also were awaiting the results of an autopsy.

Johnson's lawyer said he always found the inmate upbeat. The Waco Tribune-Herald, however, reported Friday that Johnson's mother, Patricia, said he told his sister during a death row visit Wednesday that Johnson was thinking about killing himself.

McLean said two prison officials came to her home Thursday to offer an apology.

"All they could tell us was what they knew, that there was a breakdown and how sorry they were," she said.

Johnson, who insisted he was innocent shooting McLean's husband, still had appeals pending and his lawyer was working on last-day appeals he planned to file in the courts.

Johnson was 18 at the time of the crime and blamed the shooting on a companion, David Vest, who testified against him at his trial. The pair were in a stolen car in September 1995, were running low on gas and pulled into the store where they had no money to pay for the $24 worth of fuel. Wetterman came over to help them at the pump and was shot in the face.

"The doctors looked to me to make the decision to turn off the life support," McLean said Friday. "That wasn't a decision I was ready to make. I was 22 years old and married three weeks.

"I was writing thank-you notes for wedding gifts and funeral acknowledgments at the same time."

LIVINGSTON, Texas At first Trish Wetterman McLean felt cheated. But when the man convicted of killing her husband committed suicide the day he was supposed to be executed, she says he probably did her a favor.

"I was very angry at first," McLean said Friday, a day after condemned prisoner Michael Johnson killed himself by slashing his neck and arm with a sharp piece of metal in his death row cell.

The suicide came about 15 hours before Johnson was to receive lethal injection for the 1995 shooting death of her husband Jeff Wetterman, 27, at the family-run convenience store in Lorena, about 12 miles (19 kilometers) south of Waco.

McLean had planned to be among those watch Johnson die Thursday evening and found some solace in knowing he knew she'd be present in the death chamber.

"We anticipated the trip for 11 years," she said. "I didn't want him to think that we were going to forget about this. It was still a very big deal to us. I was determined to watch him die.

"But in the end, he's still not here. And he died in a much more painful manner than what the state would have done."

Johnson, 29, was found in a pool of blood and unresponsive at 2:45 a.m. by officers making routine checks on him every 15 minutes at the Polunsky Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Fifteen minutes earlier, he was talking to prison staff and awaiting breakfast.

Johnson was taken to a hospital in Livingston, a few miles away, where he was pronounced dead about an hour after he was found.

"My concern now is how he could have done this at the prison," she said.

Under corrections department procedures, officers begin making 15-minute checks on the prisoner within 36 hours of a scheduled execution. The inmate's cell also is routinely searched every 72 hours for contraband.

An investigation by the agency's Office of Inspector General probably would take several weeks, prison spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said Friday. Authorities also were awaiting the results of an autopsy.

Johnson's lawyer said he always found the inmate upbeat. The Waco Tribune-Herald, however, reported Friday that Johnson's mother, Patricia, said he told his sister during a death row visit Wednesday that Johnson was thinking about killing himself.

McLean said two prison officials came to her home Thursday to offer an apology.

"All they could tell us was what they knew, that there was a breakdown and how sorry they were," she said.

Johnson, who insisted he was innocent shooting McLean's husband, still had appeals pending and his lawyer was working on last-day appeals he planned to file in the courts.

Johnson was 18 at the time of the crime and blamed the shooting on a companion, David Vest, who testified against him at his trial. The pair were in a stolen car in September 1995, were running low on gas and pulled into the store where they had no money to pay for the $24 worth of fuel. Wetterman came over to help them at the pump and was shot in the face.

"The doctors looked to me to make the decision to turn off the life support," McLean said Friday. "That wasn't a decision I was ready to make. I was 22 years old and married three weeks.

"I was writing thank-you notes for wedding gifts and funeral acknowledgments at the same time."

    Suicide ends years of waiting, murder victim's widow says, IHT, 20.10.2006, http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/10/20/america/NA_GEN_US_Texas_Death_Row_Suicide.php

Texas inmate kills self, leaves message in blood

Thu Oct 19, 2006 4:44 PM ET
Reuters
By Erwin Seba

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A Texas death row inmate killed himself on Thursday, leaving a message scrawled in his own blood, hours before he was to be executed for a 1995 murder, a Texas prison spokeswoman said.

Michael Johnson, 29, was found dead at 2:45 a.m. lying in a pool of blood after he used a makeshift metal blade to cut his jugular vein and an artery in his right arm, Texas prison spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said.

She confirmed that a message written in blood was found on Johnson's cell wall, but would not disclose its contents, pending an investigation into the death.

Texas prison system sources said Johnson wrote, "I DIDN'T DO IT."

Johnson, who was set to be executed at 6 p.m., was convicted and sentenced to die for the September 10, 1995, shooting death of Jeff Wetterman, 27, during a convenience store robbery in the central Texas town of Lorena.

Johnson denied that he shot Wetterman, blaming it instead on accomplice David Vest, who pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery and testified against Johnson. Vest served an eight-year prison sentence and is now free.

The suicide occurred despite close vigilance on death row, where guards check every 15 minutes on inmates facing imminent execution.

Lyons said Johnson spoke with a prison guard at 2:30 a.m. while eating his breakfast. Fifteen minutes later, he was found in his cell and taken to a nearby hospital, where he was declared dead, Lyons said.

She said there had been no indication Johnson was contemplating suicide.

Lyons said there have been "a handful" of previous suicides on Texas death row, but none so close to execution.

Texas leads the nation in capital punishment with 376 executions since 1982, six years after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted a national death penalty ban.

Johnson would have been the 22nd person executed by the state this year.

Death row prisoners are held in a high-security prison at Livingston, Texas, about 45 miles east of Huntsville, where the state's death chamber is located.

About midday, Johnson would have been taken to Huntsville to await a lethal injection. His execution was not a certainty because his lawyer still had two motions pending before the U.S. Supreme Court to halt it, a spokesman for the Texas Attorney General's office said.

There are currently 390 people on the state's death row.

(Additional reporting by Jim Forsyth in San Antonio)

    Texas inmate kills self, leaves message in blood, R, 20.10.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-10-19T204433Z_01_N19221675_RTRUKOC_0_US-CRIME-EXECUTION-SUICIDE.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-domesticNews-2

Florida prisoner executed after court rejects cruelty claim

Thursday September 21, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Ed Pilkington in New York

Governor Jeb Bush of Florida last night gave the go-ahead for a prisoner on death row to be executed by lethal injection after the courts rejected arguments that the method of his killing was cruel.

Clarence Hill, 48, was strapped to a gurney in Florida's Starke prison and injected with three separate drugs. He was pronounced dead at 11.12pm (1812 US eastern time). Earlier in the evening the US supreme court narrowly denied him a stay of execution, by just five votes to four.

It was the second time this year that Hill had been prepared for execution. In January he was also strapped to the gurney, with taps placed in his veins, for two hours before the supreme court, on that occasion, did grant a stay of execution.

He later wrote to a pen pal: "I saw all of them watching me and talking, but no one were there to help me, only to see me killed. They are not human beings because no human being could stand to kill a man or watch a man being killed in this way."

Governor Bush ordered the execution to go ahead last November and since then the case has been batted between the local and federal courts. Hill did not dispute the crime for which he was convicted - first degree murder.

In 1982, aged 23, he shot and killed a police officer in Pensacola while trying to rob a bank. But he argued through his lawyers that the method of lethal injection was not humane.

Mr Bush dismissed the case, saying that Hill could have made that argument years ago. "He killed a police officer. The sentence when it's the death penalty is not completed until the execution takes place and so it's justice denied," he said.

A vigil was held outside Starke prison last night by opponents of the death penalty, as the execution was carried out. Among the protesters was Mark Elliott of Amnesty International US.

"The state of Florida has once again killed using a non-medical procedure where there is evidence it produces severe pain and suffering in the victim," he said.

The technique of lethal injection has been the subject of increasing controversy in the states that still administer the death penalty.

Three drugs are given in order: an anaesthetic to put the condemned man to sleep; pancuronium bromide which paralyses the muscles; and finally potassium chloride to stop the heart.

But opponents of the method say that the anaesthetic cannot ensure that the prisoner is unconscious when the final drug is given. A study based on autopsies of executed prisoners last year found levels of anaesthetic insufficient to produce unconsciousness.

Amnesty pointed out that in 27 American states it would be illegal to give the three drugs to animals, let alone humans.

"If the anaesthetic wears off by the time the final drug is administered it is equivalent to being burned alive form the inside out, with no ability to cry out for help," Mr Elliott said.

Hill, from Mobile, Alabama, was the 61st inmate to die in Florida since the state resumed the death penalty in 1979. He was the first inmate to be executed this year.

Clarence Hill describes being put on the gurney

"Yes, they strapped me down to their cross and they put the killing needles in my arms and blood had run all down on the floor when they had to take them out nearly two hours later.

"They kept me strapped to this cross from 5:30 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. I was in so much pain the whole time and they walked all around me, looking at me strapped down and in pain and they were all dressed in their Sunday best clothes and they all came to witness a killing.

"I saw all of them watching me and talking, but no one were there to help me, only to see me killed. They are not human beings because no human being could stand to kill a man or watch a man being killed in this way.

"And one of them was a woman who I have seen and have talked to many times. She help to strap me to this cross to kill me.

"But Almighty Allah said No this will not be done. And freed me from their evil and gave me the needed strength to get up and walk out of there with my head held high. No human being can do this to another and go home and eat dinner with their family.

"I was in great pain the whole time, but I did not cry out for their help."

    Florida prisoner executed after court rejects cruelty claim, G, 21.9.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1878025,00.html

'I'm ready'

The last words of the 376 prisoners executed in Texas since 1982 are faithfully recorded on the state justice department's website.
Aida Edemariam reads through their final statements, and we publish edited extracts from the site

Wednesday September 20, 2006
Guardian
Aida Edemariam


The Texas death chambers are the busiest in the US, and correspondingly efficient: 376 prisoners have been executed since 1982. There isn't much time to dwell on rights and wrongs and regrets. Perhaps in order to cauterise doubt in a blaze of clarity, everything is catalogued: the minute the prisoner is injected with lethal medicine, the minute it starts to take effect, the minute they die. Now that there is nothing they can do to change their fate, the prisoners are allowed small freedoms: to choose their last meals, to say a few words. These last words, too, are catalogued, and are publicly available on the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's website. The pages are cleanly designed, passionless, almost an artwork - but the minimalism cannot hide the fact that every name and number indicates whole blighted, messy lives, of victims and prisoners alike.

The statements are hard to read. They are at once public and very private. They are domestic. They ask partners to care for soon-to-be fatherless children. There is a lot of love - for friends, supporters, partners, already grieving parents. There is guilt. They are overwhelmingly religious, mostly asking for mercy from a Christian God, though there is the occasional invocation of Allah. The appearance of a foreign language is unusual. In more recent years the recorders have contented themselves with "...(Spanish)...", as if being foreign stripped the prisoner of their last words. Profanity gets the same treatment. State-sanctioned murder is fine. Swearing, it seems, is not.

Many are still pleading their innocence. This too is difficult to read, because there is no way for us to know whether they are telling the truth. Along with each statement is a description of the crimes each prisoner is accused of committing. Rape, sexual molestation and murder of a five-year-old. Rape, strangling and drowning of a 28-year-old woman. Murder, during robberies, of a whole procession of small-town store clerks. Many may well not be able to face, possibly even comprehend what they have done; others may be hoping for the last-minute stay. And some may be telling the truth: a careful Boston Globe review of the 127 death-row inmates who died during George Bush's governorship of Texas concluded that "there was powerful proof of guilt - uncontradicted scientific evidence, freely offered confessions, or an admission of regret before the execution - in nine out of 10 cases."

Farley Matchett is the most recent prisoner to be executed in Texas, and the 21st this year. According to his own account, he killed a man in self-defence in a fight in July 1991. "I called the paramedics but he died in surgery later," he said. He was arrested, and for the next 36 hours, he claimed, "The detectives literally beat a confession out of me. I signed it just to get them to stop the beatings." He accused his lawyer of failing to plead self-defence, and anti-death penalty activists took up his cause. But the official record alleges that the argument was about his crack addiction, and an autopsy contradicts his account of the death. He also, the police say, killed a 74-year-old woman with a hammer the day before.

Some cases have become causes celebre. Gary Graham was convicted of killing Bobby Grant Lambert in a Houston parking lot in Houston in May 1981, when he was 17. His last words, on June 22 2000, ended with: "Keep marching, black people. They are killing me tonight. They are murdering me tonight."

Race is an unignorable factor, but though the general perception is that death row is populated largely by black men, 49% of those executed since 1976 have been white, 36% black, and 15% Hispanic; much more striking is the lack of opportunity, the generally low level of education: few went further than high school.

Then there are those executed despite their mental incapacity: Oliver Cruz, executed in August 2000, had an IQ of between 64 and 76; Larry Robison, also executed in 2000 for killing five people when he was 24, was a paranoid schizophrenic.

After a while, when you have read 100 or so of these final statements, they start to run together into a ghoulish mass of murder and rapine, so you start looking for the differences. The man who wanted to reassure the husband of the woman he strangled, raped and killed that she fought him to the end. Or Billy Vickers, who admitted on the gurney that he was responsible for not one, but at least a dozen deaths.

Many - including Cruz - accept what they have done and simply say that they are sorry. Some exit defiant, squaring up to the victims' relatives. Many end with what seems, on paper at least, a gentle word of assent to the warden, as if giving permission, a tiny gesture of control over their own ends. Lawrence Lee Buxton was executed on February 26 1991 for shooting a customer in a grocery-store hold-up. His entire last statement reads: "I'm ready, Warden".

Henry Porter

Executed July 9 1985

Age 43

Age at time of offence 33

Crime Killing a police officer

Last statement "What I want people to know is that they call me a cold-blooded killer when I shot a man that shot me first. The only thing that convicted me was that I am a Mexican and that he was a police officer. People hollered for my life, and they are to have my life tonight.

"The people never hollered for the life of the policeman that killed a 13-year-old boy who was handcuffed in the back seat of a police car. The people never hollered for the life of a Houston police officer who beat up and drowned Jose Campo Torres and threw his body in the river. You call that equal justice. This is your equal justice. This is America's equal justice.

"A Mexican's life is worth nothing. When a policeman kills someone he gets a suspended sentence. When a Mexican kills a police officer this is what you get. From there you call me a cold-blooded murderer. I didn't tie anyone to a stretcher. I didn't pump poison into anybody's veins from behind a locked door [ ... ] I hope God will be as merciful to society as he has been to me. I'm ready, Warden."

Freddie Webb

Executed March 31 1994

Age 33

Age at time of offence 25

Crime Abduction and murder

Last statement "Peace."

Willis Jay Barnes

Executed September 10 1999

Age 51

Age at time of offence 39

Crime Rape and murder of an 84-year-old woman

Last statement "I would like to give love to my mother, sisters and brothers and let them know that I am thinking of them right now and I want to thank God for giving me such a loving family. To the victim's family: I hope you will find it in your heart to forgive me as I have forgiven you. I'm ready, Warden."

Jason Eric Massey

Executed April 3 2001

Age 28

Age at time of offence 20

Crime Murder of two children, aged 13 and 14

Last statement "Yes, first I would like to speak to the victims' family. First of all, I would like to say that I do not know any of y'all and that is unfortunate, because I would like to apologise to each and every one of you individually. I can't imagine what I have taken from y'all, but I do want to apologise and I want to let you know that I did do it. You guys know that I am guilty and I am sorry for what I have done.

"I apologise and I know that you may not be [ ... ] able to forgive me in this life and in this world, but I hope sometime in the future you will be able to find it in you to forgive me. And I want you to know that Christina, she did not suffer as much as you think she did. I promise you that. I give you my word. I know you guys want to know where the rest of her remains are. I put her remains in the Trinity river. I have said that since I have come to death row. I want to apologise to you again. I hope sometime in the future you can forgive me.

"OK, now I want to speak to my mom and my family. Brother Anderson, Kathy, I want you to know that I appreciate all these years that you have been coming to see me on death row and Daddy, I love you. I appreciate y'all being here and being strong for me, and Mama, you know I love you, and I appreciate all these visits, the letters and everything y'all have done for me. Y'all have been wonderful. You too, Granny. I love y'all and you know, I want to apologise to y'all too for what I have done. For all the pain that I have caused, but all this pain has brought us closer together and all this suffering that we have been through has brought us all closer to the Lord and in the end that is what counts. Isn't it? That's what counts in the end; where you stand with Almighty God."

Jeffery Doughtie

Executed August 16 2001

Age 39

Age at time of offence 31

Crime Murder of an elderly couple in their antique shop

Last statement "For almost nine years I have thought about the death penalty, whether it is right or wrong, and I don't have any answers. But I don't think the world will be a better or safer place without me. If you had wanted to punish me you would have killed me the day after, instead of killing me now. You are not hurting me now. I have had time to get ready, to tell my family goodbye, to get my life where it needed to be."

Jermarr Arnold

Executed January 16 2002

Age 43

Age at time of offence 24

Crime Murder of a 21-year-old jewellery-store worker

Last statement "Yes sir, members of Mrs Sanchez's family, I don't know who you are and other people present. As I said, I'm taking responsibility for the death of your daughter in 1983. I'm deeply sorry for the loss of your loved one [ ... ] I cannot explain and can't give you answers. I can give you one thing, and I'm going to give that today. I [can] give a life for a life. I pray you will have no ill will or animosity. You have the right to see this, I am glad you are here. All I can do is ask the Lord for forgiveness. I am not saying this to be facetious. I am giving my life. I hope you find comfort in my execution. As for me, I am happy, that is why you see me smiling. I am glad I am leaving this world. I am going to a better place. I have made peace with God, I am born again [ ... ] God bless all of you. Thank you all for being here."

Napoleon Beazley

Executed May 28 2002

Age 25

Age at time of offence 17

Crime "Carjacking murder" of 63-year-old John Luttig

Last statement "The act I committed to put me here was not just heinous, it was senseless. But the person that committed that act is no longer here - I am.

"I'm not going to struggle physically against any restraints. I'm not going to shout, use profanity or make idle threats. Understand, though, that I'm not only upset, but I'm saddened by what is happening here tonight. I'm not only saddened, but disappointed that a system that is supposed to protect and uphold what is just and right can be so much like me when I made the same shameful mistake.

"If someone tried to dispose of everyone here for participating in this killing, I'd scream a resounding, "No." I'd tell them to give them all the gift that they would not give me [ ... ] and that's to give them all a second chance.

"I'm sorry that I am here. I'm sorry that you're all here. I'm sorry that John Luttig died. And I'm sorry that it was something in me that caused all of this to happen to begin with.

"Tonight we tell the world that there are no second chances in the eyes of justice [ ... ] Tonight, we tell our children that in some instances, in some cases, killing is right [ ... ] No one wins tonight. No one gets closure. No one walks away victorious."

Billy Vickers

Executed January 28 2004

Age 58

Age at time of offence 47

Crime Murder

Last statement "Tell Mama and the kids I love you; I love all of you. And I would like to clear some things up if I could. Tommy Perkins, the man that got a capital life sentence for murdering Kinslow - he did not do it. I did it. He would not even have had anything to do with it if he had known I was going to shoot the man. He would not have gone with me if he had known. I was paid to shoot the man. And Martin, the younger boy, did not know what it was about. He thought it was just a robbery. I am sorry for that.

"It was nothing personal. I was trying to make a living. A boy on Eastham doing a life sentence for killing Jamie Kent - I did not do it, but I was with his daddy when it was done. I was there with him and down through the years there were several more that I had done or had a part of. And I am sorry and I am not sure how many - there must be a dozen or 14 I believe all total. One I would like to clear up is Cullen Davis - where he was charged with shooting his wife. And all of these it was never nothing personal. It was just something I did to make a living. I am sorry for all the grief I have caused. I love you all. That is all I have to say."

Cameron Todd Willingham

Executed February 17 2004

Age 36

Age at time of offence 23

Crime Killing his three children in a house fire

Last statement "The only statement I want to make is that I am an innocent man - convicted of a crime I did not commit. I have been persecuted for 12 years for something I did not do. From God's dust I came and to dust I will return - so the earth shall become my throne. I gotta go, road dog. I love you, Gabby." [Remaining portion of statement omitted due to profanity.]

Kelsey Patterson

Executed May 18 2004

Age 50

Age at time of offence 38

Crime Murder of an oil-company owner and his business secretary. Was standing naked in the street, not far from the murder scene, at the time of his arrest.

Last statement "Statement to what. State what. I am not guilty of the charge of capital murder. Steal me and my family's money. My truth will always be my truth. There is no kin and no friend; no fear what you do to me. No kin to you undertaker. Murderer. [Portion of statement omitted due to profanity] Get my money. Give me my rights. Give me my rights. Give me my rights. Give me my life back."

Dominique Green

Executed October 26 2004

Age 30

Age at time of offence 18

Crime Aggravated robbery

Last statement "I am not angry, but I am disappointed that I was denied justice. But I am happy that I was afforded you all as family and friends. You all have been there for me; it's a miracle. I love you [ ... ] I am not as strong as I thought I was going to be. But I guess it only hurts for a little while. You all are my family. Please keep my memory alive."

Melvin White

Executed November 3 2005

Age 55

Age at time of offence 47

Crime Sexual assault and murder of a young girl

Last statement "Tell Beth and them I am sorry, truly sorry for the pain that I caused your family. I truly mean that too. She was a friend of mine and I betrayed her trust. I love you all. Tell Momma I love her. [He recites the Lord's prayer.] All right, Warden, let's give them what they want."

Shannon Charles Thomas

Executed November 16 2005

Age 34

Age at time of offence 22

Crime Murder of a father and his two children during a robbery

Last statement "This is kind of hard to put words together; I am nervous and it is hard to put my thoughts together. Sometimes you don't know what to say; I hope these words give you comfort. I don't know what to say. I want you to know I love you; just stay strong and don't give up. Let everybody know I love them [ ... ] and love is unconditional, as Mama has always told us. I may be gone in the flesh, but I am always with you in spirit. I love you."

Reese Lamont

Executed June 20 2006

Age 28

Age at time of offence 21

Crime Shot and killed three people

Last statement "I am glad it didn't take that long - not 10 or 20 years. I am at peace [ ... ] I love you all. I do not know all your names. And I don't know how you feel about me. And whether you believe it or not, I did not kill them [ . . . ] I am glad it didn't last long. I am glad it didn't last long. I am at peace. I am at peace to the fullest. The people that did this - they know. I am not here to point fingers. God will let them know. If this is what it takes, just do what you got to do to get past it. What it takes. I am ready, Warden. Love you all. Let my son know I love him."

Angel Resendiz

Executed June 27 2006

Age 45

Age at time of offence 38

Crime Murder

Last statement "I want to ask if it is in your heart to forgive me. You don't have to. I know I allowed the devil to rule my life [ ... ] I deserve what I am getting."

Derrick O'Brien

Executed July 11 2006

Age 31

Age at time of offence 18

Crime Sexual assault and strangling of two girls

Last statement "I am sorry. I have always been sorry. It is the worst mistake that I ever made in my whole life. Not because I am here, but because of what I did and I hurt a lot of people [ ... ] I love you all [ ... ] All right."

William Wyatt

Executed August 3 2006

Age 41

Age at time of offence 32

Crime Sexual assault and murder of a three-year-old boy

Last statement "I would like to say to Damien's family that I did not murder your son. I did not do it. I just want you to know that - I did not murder Damien and would ask for all your forgiveness and I will see all of you soon. I love you guys. I love you guys. That's it."

Farley Matchett

Executed September 12 2006

Age 43

Age at time of offence 28

Crime Murder

Last statement "To my family and my mother and my three precious daughters, I love you all. And to my brother and sister for standing with me throughout this situation. Stay strong and know that I'm in a better place. I ask for forgiveness. And to the victim's family, find peace and cancellation with my death and move on. Our Lord Jesus Christ, I commend myself to you. I am ready".

    'I'm ready', G, 20.9.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1876368,00.html

Inmate Awaits Final Ruling on Lethal Injection

September 19, 2006
The New York Times
By ABBY GOODNOUGH

MIAMI, Sept. 18 — Clarence E. Hill was strapped to a gurney last winter, a few moments from death, when the United States Supreme Court halted his execution.

Mr. Hill had claimed that Florida’s lethal injection method caused so much pain that it violated the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The Supreme Court said in June that the federal district court in Tallahassee had to consider the argument on procedural grounds. That cleared the way for death row inmates around the country to file lawsuits that would otherwise have been prohibited by tight restrictions on petitions for habeas corpus.

But last month, before the district court could review the case, Gov. Jeb Bush rescheduled Mr. Hill’s death for Sept. 20. Then, to the surprise of death penalty opponents who thought the district court would take testimony on the state’s lethal injection method, the court swiftly rejected the case again. In Atlanta, the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld the decision last week.

Now, with Mr. Hill scheduled to die Wednesday, he has again appealed to the Supreme Court. And lawyers on both sides of the debate are waiting to see how his case may affect the way lethal drugs are administered in 37 states.

Courts in California and Missouri have allowed extensive hearings this year on the lethal injection process, putting executions on hold until they can study the question of just how painful the current methods are.

Oklahoma recently changed its protocol so that the condemned receive more anesthesia before they are killed, and a federal judge in North Carolina ordered that a brain monitor be used to make sure an inmate was unconscious when the final drug was given. South Dakota delayed its first execution in 59 years last month after Gov. Michael Rounds said lawmakers needed time to review lethal injection protocols.

Other states, including Texas and Virginia, have continued to execute inmates since the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Hill case without holding evidentiary hearings on the specific procedures and combinations of chemicals used.

“Nationally there is an inconsistency in the review of lethal injection challenges,” said Richard C. Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a research group that opposes capital punishment. “If the Florida case was that serious for the Supreme Court, I would think at a minimum in Florida they would hold an evidentiary hearing to hear from both sides about whether there are particular problems.”

The case of Mr. Hill, who killed a police officer in a 1982 robbery in Pensacola, is coming to a head days after the American Bar Association called for substantial changes in Florida’s death penalty laws. In March, the Florida Supreme Court urged the Legislature to require jury decisions to be unanimous in capital punishment cases. Florida is one of the few states without such a rule.

Florida switched to lethal injection in 2000 after flames shot from an inmate’s head during his execution by electric chair.

When he reinstated Mr. Hill’s death warrant last month, Governor Bush said in a letter to prison officials that the stay from the Supreme Court had expired. But Mr. Hill’s lawyer, D. Todd Doss, said that Mr. Bush, a death penalty supporter, could instead have filed a motion to accelerate the rehearing of the case.

On Monday, Mr. Bush said the delays in Mr. Hill’s case had made “a mockery” of the judicial system.

“The challenges have been exhausted,” he told reporters in Tallahassee. “Unless there’s other challenges, I have a duty to sign death warrants, and the system has a duty to carry out the sentence.”

Like most other death-penalty states, Florida uses a combination of three chemicals in lethal injection: one to anesthetize the inmate, a second to paralyze the body and a third to stop the heart. Mr. Hill, 48, has based his case on a 2005 study published in the British medical journal The Lancet that concluded that the anesthetic could wear off before an inmate died.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Mr. Hill’s case in June, saying that inmates facing execution by lethal injection could invoke a federal civil rights law to challenge the state’s choice of drugs and the manner in which they are administered.

In rejecting Mr. Hill’s civil rights claim a second time, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals in Atlanta said he had waited too long to file it — he did so four days before he was to be executed in January — and was merely trying to stall.

Mr. Hill’s complaint charged that Florida had adopted its lethal injection procedure without medical research or expertise; that “unqualified” prison officials carried it out; and that the drugs used would “create a dangerous likelihood that Mr. Hill will be conscious throughout the execution process and, as a result, will experience an excruciatingly painful and protracted death.”

Mr. Doss, his lawyer, said he had hoped for a hearing in which witnesses could testify to whether Florida’s method of lethal injection caused undue pain. But Carolyn M. Snurkowski, assistant deputy attorney general for Florida, said the Supreme Court had made no such guarantee.

“No one has thus far suggested that he is entitled to any kind of hearing,” Ms. Snurkowski said. “The Supreme Court said the equities lie with the state, and if he’s too late in filing this, he might not have a vehicle by which he can get relief.”

In California, a federal judge is to review the state’s lethal injection method in a hearing scheduled to start next week and is to decide whether it presents an unacceptable risk of inflicting extreme pain in violation of the Eighth Amendment. And in Missouri, a federal judge ruled last week that a new protocol for lethal injection still fell short of providing constitutional protections, keeping executions on hold there.

“Whether we win or lose,” Mr. Doss said, “it’s not going to go away. Each and every person coming up behind us is going to raise this issue.”

Stay of Execution in Tennessee

NASHVILLE, Sept. 18 (AP) — A federal appeals court issued a stay of execution on Monday for a convicted killer who was to die early Tuesday in Tennessee’s first electric chair execution in 46 years.

The killer, Daryl K. Holton, confessed to the 1997 assault rifle killings of his three young sons and their half-sister. In granting the stay, the court said it wanted to review the district court’s ruling that Mr. Holton’s lawyers had failed to prove he was not competent to abandon a federal appeal of his sentence.

    Inmate Awaits Final Ruling on Lethal Injection, NYT, 19.9.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/19/us/19death.html