Daijiworld Media Network - Texas
Texas, Sep 17: A Texas man was executed on Wednesday for the fatal shooting of three people during an attempted robbery at a neighbour’s home in rural Texas, marking the state’s fifth execution of the year.
LeJames Norman, 40, was put to death by lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the 2005 killings of Samuel Roberts, 24, Tiffani Peacock, 18, and Celso Lopez, 38. The three victims were shot inside the home they shared in Edna, about 100 miles southwest of Houston.
Norman and Ker’Sean Ramey were convicted in the killings and both received death sentences. Ramey’s execution is scheduled for next week.
Court records showed that Norman and Ramey believed cocaine was being kept at the house and intended to steal it, but they did not find any drugs. Norman was arrested about five months after the killings while attempting to re-enter the United States from Mexico.
Norman pleaded guilty to capital murder, leaving the jury to determine his punishment. The US Supreme Court rejected a request from his lawyers on Wednesday to halt the execution.
Norman declined to make a final statement before the lethal injection. He was pronounced dead at 6:44 pm after receiving pentobarbital.
No relatives or friends of the three victims witnessed the execution.
Meanwhile, a scheduled execution in Georgia was halted by a judge just hours before the convicted killer was due to be put to death.
Stacey Humphreys, 53, had been scheduled for execution for the 2003 killings of real estate agents Cyndi Williams, 33, and Lori Brown, 21, in Powder Springs, an Atlanta suburb.
Humphreys was convicted of malice murder and other offences after evidence showed that he entered a sales office at a model home on November 3, 2003, forced the two women to provide their bank PINs and fatally shot them. He later withdrew more than USD 3,000 from their accounts, according to court records.
Humphreys’ execution was halted after his lawyers sought resentencing under a new Georgia law that allows victims of abuse to seek reconsideration and reduction of their sentences when their crimes can be linked to abuse they suffered.
The state appealed the ruling, but the Georgia Supreme Court declined to consider the appeal before the scheduled execution time, leaving the stay in place. The court said it would consider the legal questions surrounding the new law through its normal proceedings.
Humphreys’ lawyers have also argued that his death sentence was affected by a juror who allegedly lied during jury selection and pressured other jurors to support a death sentence. Courts have previously rejected those claims on procedural grounds.
His legal team further challenged the clemency process, arguing that his application was considered by only four of the five members of the State Board of Pardons and Paroles after one member was ordered to recuse herself because of a potential conflict of interest. The board denied clemency on Tuesday.