Seven US executions scheduled in next 10 days

[Joanne98]

By Kate Randall
12 November 2008

Over the next 10 days, seven death row inmates are scheduled to be executed in the United States. Five of these condemned men are in Texas, a state that has carried out 15 of the 31 executions in the US so far this year.


Barring a last-minute reprieve, George Whitaker III will die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Wednesday evening at the Texas execution chamber in Huntsville, north of Houston. The next day, prisoner Denard Manns is set to be put to death.


Three more Texas executions are planned for next week: Eric Cathey on Tuesday, November 18; Rogelio Cannady on Wednesday, November 19; and Robert Hudson on Thursday, November 20.


Two executions are scheduled in other states: Gregory L. Bryant-Bey in Ohio, and Marco Allen Chapman in Kentucky. Chapman would be the first person put to death in Kentucky in 10 years.


George Whitaker, 36, was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1994 murder of Shakeitha Carrier, his ex-girlfriend’s sister. His former court-appointed lawyer, retired state District Judge Jay Burnett, petitioned the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to recommend that Republican Governor Rick Perry commute his sentence to life in prison or grant a 30-stay so that his petition could be reviewed.


In his petition to the pardon board, Burnett argued that his client was unjustly condemned to death because the presiding judge in his case, Caprice Cooper, prevented the jury from being told that the alternative sentence would have been 40 years in prison with no possibility of parole. Burnett said he was reasonably certain that the jury “believe in the popular myth that convicted defendants serve only short terms before being released from prison.”


Burnett also contended that Whitaker received poor legal representation because lawyers did not present expert testimony regarding lingering effects of a childhood brain injury. He also maintained that the crime did not meet the criteria for the death penalty in Texas, which requires the prosecution prove that a murder occurred during the commission of another felony offense. Prosecutors argued that the murder took place while Whitaker burglarized the family’s home, but Burnett argued that the defendant had not entered the house to steal anything.


Earlier this week, the pardon board recommended that Governor Perry reject Burnett’s petition, making it increasingly likely that Whitaker’s execution will go forward. Texas governors rarely act against the recommendations of the board. Rick Perry has presided over 181 executions, more than any other governor since the US Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.


Perry took over as Texas governor in December 2000 from George W. Bush, who left the office to assume the US presidency. Bush presided over the 152 executions during his five years as Texas governor, commuting only one death sentence.


As governor, Rick Perry has taken a fervently pro-death-penalty stance, and has signed death warrants for the mentally retarded, foreign nationals, those convicted for crimes committed as juveniles, and many condemned prisoners whose guilt was in reasonable doubt. In June 2002, Perry vetoed a ban on the execution of mentally retarded inmates.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/nov2008/usex-n12.shtml