Executions Texas

An oil-field worker was executed Tuesday for the 1987 slayings of three people, including a 10-year-old girl and an ex-boss who was promoted ahead of him. Eddie James Johnson, 44, was pronounced dead seven minutes after he was injected with a lethal dose of drugs. Johnson, the 23rd inmate put to death in 1997, was the second condemned killer marched into the Texas death chamber this week and the seventh this month.

Tuesday's execution of Jose Medellin, a Mexican citizen who was convicted of the 1993 rape and murder of two girls in Texas, ended the life of a vicious criminal. But it also flouted a treaty signed by the U.S. that will now offer less protection to Americans arrested and imprisoned abroad -- unless Congress acts. Medellin was one of 51 Mexican nationals on death row in the United States who weren't informed upon their arrest of their right to meet with consular officials from their home country, a violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations ratified by the U.S. in 1969.

A man who fatally shot a convenience store clerk worried about his victim's family in the moments before he was executed by injection Wednesday evening. "What I want to say is I have remorse and I'm really sorry about what happened to that family," John Satterwhite, 53, said in a telephone call to Associated Press less than an hour before he was strapped to the Texas death chamber gurney for killing Mary Francis Davis, 54.

A death row inmate whose case attracted the attention of celebrity capital punishment opponent Susan Sarandon was executed Thursday evening for killing a convenience store clerk. Speaking slowly and quietly, James Allridge III thanked his family and friends for loving him and expressed remorse. "I am sorry, I really am. You, Brian's sister, thanks for your love. It meant a lot," he said, looking at his victim's family. "I am sorry I destroyed y'all's life. Thank you for forgiving me.

An inmate described as a "good jail house lawyer" was put to death Friday after attorneys working without the condemned man's consent failed to obtain a stay of execution. Ramon Hernandez, 44, died by injection for killing an El Paso night watchman during a failed robbery in 1980. The execution came less than 30 minutes after the U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay for Hernandez, who opposed all appeal efforts on his behalf.

A man who killed a teller during a 1980 bank holdup became the third person put to death in Texas in the last seven days when he was executed by lethal injection Tuesday. Kenneth Dunn, 39, was pronounced dead six minutes after he was injected with a fatal mix of chemicals at a state prison here. Texas leads the nation in executions. Dunn was the 19th inmate executed in Texas this year and the 183rd since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982.

It's not an easy task to start with, and so much, so very much can go awry. Machine failure, human error, tricky new equipment. Sheer nerves, the media. Cramped quarters for the visitors, uncertain or unpracticed staffers. And the hardest part of all, the part only perfectible with constant practice: what to say to a condemned man as potassium chloride solution invades his blood. It's a strange, taxing craft, performing executions, and Texas, many wardens say, performs it best.

Charles Rodman Campbell went to the gallows Friday without a word--but not without a struggle. Campbell, 39, had to be subdued with pepper spray and strapped to a board before he could be hanged for the murders of two women and an 8-year-old girl. Campbell was convicted of murdering Renae Wicklund, her 8-year-old daughter, Shannah, and neighbor Barbara Hendrickson at Wicklund's home in 1982. He slashed the throats of all three. Authorities called it a revenge killing.

The Roman Catholic Church, shocked by a record number of executions in Texas this year, urged the state Monday to abandon the death penalty. All 21 of the state's Catholic bishops said in a statement the state was "usurping the sovereign dominion of God over human life" and thereby contributing to "a climate of violence." "We sympathize with the profound pain of the victims of brutal crimes.

A man who killed a brother and sister during a pawnshop robbery eight years ago was executed by injection Friday as the family of his victims peered through a window a few feet away. Leo Jenkins, 38, had ordered appeals halted. The 10th-grade dropout from Ohio had a long criminal record. Jenkins was put to death for the 1988 murders of Mark Kelley, 25, and his sister Kara Voss, 20, in their family-owned pawnshop. Victims' survivors had not previously been invited to executions in Texas.

A federal court halted a Texas execution Wednesday, the second time in eight days that questions about an inmate's mental retardation temporarily spared him from the United States' busiest death chamber. A three-judge panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans granted Robert Charles Ladd a stay about nine hours before he was due to be put to death by lethal injection.

HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- Texas executed a former nurse's aide by lethal injection Thursday for shooting a service station clerk in the face during a January 1996 robbery. Daniel Reneau, 27, and an accomplice, Jeffery Wood, took a safe and cash box containing $11,350 in cash and checks from the Texaco service station in Kerrville, Texas, after Reneau shot the 31-year-old clerk, Kris Keeran. Wood was also convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death for his role in Keeran's death.

A man convicted of killing his wife and father-in-law in 1979 was executed Thursday, the third condemned inmate Georgia has put to death in three weeks. Later in Texas, a Dallas man whose offenses began at age 11 when he stabbed a schoolmate was put to death by lethal injection for killing a restaurant manager in 1988. The Georgia inmate, Fred Marion Gilreath Jr., 63, had received a one-day stay Wednesday for the U.S.

A man who spent nearly half of his life on death row was executed by injection Monday night for a murder he committed at the age of 17. Before he was put to death, Gerald Mitchell apologized to the mother of his victim. "I am sorry for the pain. I am sorry for the life I took from you. I ask God for forgiveness and I ask you for the same," the 33-year-old convicted killer said, looking at Diane Marino, whose son, Charles, he killed.

There were no television trucks, no final-hour appeals, no news conferences. Wooden platforms erected for camera crews one day earlier stood deserted; the witness rooms were half full. A 39-year-old carpenter named Jeffrey Carlton Doughtie was killed by the state of Texas on Thursday afternoon. And Texas barely blinked. Doughtie's final hours stood in sharp contrast to the crowds and clamor outside the Texas death house the day before.

On an unusual 3-3 vote, the Supreme Court on Monday refused to halt the execution of a Texas man who, as a teenager, shot and killed the father of a prominent Virginia judge. Three members of the high court recused themselves from the case because they are friends of the victim's son. Three other justices voted to halt the execution and hear the appeal, while the remaining three voted to let it proceed. Under the rules, it takes a majority of participating justices to halt an execution.

Two convicted killers, including a prisoner described by death penalty opponents as mentally retarded, were executed Wednesday in the nation's busiest death chamber. Before he was given the lethal injection, Brian Keith Roberson, 36, condemned for the 1986 stabbing deaths of an elderly couple who lived across the street from him in Dallas, lashed out at family members and police officers who testified against him at his trial. "You ain't got what you want," he said.

Charles Henry Rector ordered three beef enchiladas, three tacos, French fries and a strawberry shake. Syed Mohmed Rabbani is from Bangladesh. William Prince Davis' last four words were "What about those Cowboys?" Just as Texas executes more inmates than any of the other 37 states with the death penalty, its 2-year-old Web site offers the most--and, often, the most chilling--details about the men and women killed by the state and the process used to do so. Who was on death row the longest?

A federal appeals court Monday blocked Texas from executing a man whose lawyer slept through substantial parts of his 1984 murder trial in Houston. Last year, a smaller appeals court panel cleared the way for Texas to execute Calvin J. Burdine, even though his lawyer, Joe Frank Cannon, had fallen asleep through much of his trial. Texas officials under both then-Gov. George W. Bush and his successor had argued that the sleeping lawyer did not violate Burdine's constitutional rights.