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TWO DEATH ROW inmates convicted of murder were executed in the United States.
One of them was a septuagenarian put to death in Arizona nearly 40 years after he was sentenced to capital punishment over a double murder. The other man was executed in Texas for the 2006 killing of his ex-girlfriend and her young son. Both executions used lethal injection.
Murray Hooper, a 76-year-old African American, died in the Florence penitentiary, the state’s attorney general, Mark Brnovich, announced in a statement.
For “those who commit heinous crimes,” Brnovich said, “we must never forget the victims or cease to pursue what justice demands.”
US death row cases often are filled with aged convicts who have spent decades seeing their cases wind through the justice system. At the end of 2020, nearly a quarter of those on death row were over 60 years old, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC).
According to prosecutors, on New Year’s Eve 1980, Hooper and two accomplices broke into a house in Phoenix to rob it, tied up the three occupants and shot each of them in the head.
One man and his mother-in-law died, but his wife survived and later identified all three assailants. The three were sentenced to death in 1983, but the other two died in custody before being executed.
Hooper had maintained his innocence but never obtained an acquittal.
In Texas, prison authorities executed Stephen Barbee, 55, later.
He was sentenced to death in 2006 for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, who was pregnant at the time, and her seven-year-old son.
As part of his final statement before dying, Barbee said, “I’m ready to go home. I’m ready warden, send me home,” according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
“I just want everyone to have peace in their heart, make eternity with Jesus, give him the glory in everything you do. I’m ready,” it quoted Barbee as saying.
Barbee initially confessed to the crime, but recanted, saying he was coerced into a false confession by police.
Since his initial conviction, he has obtained two suspended sentences.
His attorneys Tuesday filed a final appeal with the US Supreme Court, but the court rejected a stay.
The appeal had criticised local prison wardens for not having a written policy on the religious rights of prisoners in the execution chamber.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has little sympathy for the arguments of death row inmates, except sometimes in religious cases.
Barbee became the 15th death row inmate to be executed in the United States this year.
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She got out easy enough but getting back into Trump’s America now might be a little tricker.
@winston smith: won’t be a problem, Trump likes grabbing pussys
@winston smith: President Trump has no problem with people entering USA in the proper legal manner and applying for a Visa.
@Steve Austin: is that why his travel bans have been so successful, bit like his businesses. Can you give me a Hell ya
@winston smith: I’ll take “what are feet for for 400 please”
@Steve Austin: is that why he signed an executive order preventing people who went through the proper channels from entering the US?
@Steve Austin: but people have a problem entering trumps America that’s why tourism is down bigly
I remember that Nat Geo Documentary about the cats and dogs that found their way home?
Homeward Bound I believe it was called.
@Brian Guilfoyle: he whisked it. simple.
There’s a voice that keeps on calling me……
@MARK O ‘LEARY:… until tomorrow I’ll just keep moving on
I hope she kept a catalogue of her travels..there is a film in it somewhere.
Cats, like all wool-bearing animals, instinctively travel North, where it’s warmer, and they won’t be so stuffy.
@Harry the Cat: I heard cats originate from a much warmer and dryer climate. North African/ Middle East type climate. They hate the cold and they hate water and the wet. They don’t have a woolly coat just a thin fur. They also get very confused when they see snow, some are scared, some go chasing after falling snow flakes. They’re not at home in the snow at all.
@Jack Bowden: ever heard of the snow leopard or the Siberian tiger?
@Harry the Cat: Canada is a lot colder than California. You got that in reverse mate.
@Robert Cullen: yeah I’m talking about the domesticated short hair cat.
@Harry the Cat: How is it warmer in the north you plum
@Shane, Harry lives in South Africa.
Well that’s about the same amount of time you’d spend waiting to see a gyno in Cork..and whole story about a cat but nothing about the mismanaged services maternity services in Cork.
Nothing about managers and consultants only working Monday to Friday ( because we all know, babies born over the weekend are a nuisance), nothing about their enormous salaries for this 9-5 job? nothing about overworked nurses trying to deal with the huge amount of babies to be born. Nope. Nothing.
@jenni: what the actual f?
@Damocles: Think it’s called reality on this small benighted island…..
@Kerry Blake: it’s a puff piece about a cat. Times and places.
That’s all well and good Jenni but it doesn’t explain how the cat got to Canada.
Ryan Air of course!
I’d hazard a guess she walked or possibly jumped into the back of a pick up truck for warmth
‘Adobted’ by another family that moved to Canada?
Somebody knows.
Ryan Air?
Probably walked
Cats are like that?
have your say