{"id":28446,"date":"2024-10-19T09:16:09","date_gmt":"2024-10-19T13:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=28446"},"modified":"2024-10-19T09:18:52","modified_gmt":"2024-10-19T13:18:52","slug":"alabama-executes-man-who-asked-to-be-put-to-death-as-texas-judge-halts-another-execution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2024\/10\/19\/alabama-executes-man-who-asked-to-be-put-to-death-as-texas-judge-halts-another-execution\/","title":{"rendered":"Alabama executes man who asked to be put to death – as Texas judge halts another execution"},"content":{"rendered":"
There were two planned executions in the US on Thursday – one was halted over questions of the suspect’s guilt and the other went ahead after the death row inmate asked to be killed.<\/p>\n
The Texas Supreme Court stopped the scheduled execution of Robert Roberson, who was convicted of killing his two-year-old daughter in 2002.<\/p>\n
He would have become the first person in the US to be put to death for a murder conviction tied to a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Derrick Dearman, 36, was pronounced dead at 6.14pm local time in Alabama after he dropped his appeal earlier this year and asked a judge to carry out his death sentence.<\/p>\n
Dearman broke into a home where his estranged girlfriend had taken refuge, in a drug-fuelled rampage in 2016, and killed five people.<\/p>\n
At least 20 people have been put to death in the US this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.<\/p>\n
But numbers have been trending down in recent decades.<\/p>\n
‘He was shocked, to say the least’<\/strong><\/p>\n
A flurry of last-ditch legal challenges and weeks of public pressure led to a late-night stay of execution for Roberson.<\/p>\n
His supporters claim he was sent to death row based on flawed science.<\/p>\n
In the hours leading up to the ruling, Roberson sat in a prison cell just a few metres from his country’s busiest death chamber at the Walls Unit, in Huntsville, as he waited for certainty over his fate.<\/p>\n
“He was shocked, to say the least,” said Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesperson Amanda Hernandez, who spoke with Roberson after the court stayed his execution.<\/p>\n
“He praised god and he thanked his supporters.”<\/p>\n
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<\/div>Jennifer Martin, left, and Thomas Roberson, older brother of condemned prisoner Robert Roberson, right. (Image:<\/span> AP)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
The 57-year-old was convicted of killing his daughter Nikki Curtis but his lawyers and some medical experts have said she died from complications related to pneumonia.<\/p>\n
A bipartisan coalition of state politicians employed unusual methods to save Roberson’s life, issuing a subpoena for him to testify before a committee next week – a plan, some conceded, which had never been tried before.<\/p>\n
Less than two hours before Roberson’s execution, a judge sided with politicians before an appeals panel reversed the decision.<\/p>\n
But then the all-Republican court ended a night of uncertainty with its ruling.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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<\/div>Dearman in 2016. (Image:<\/span> AP)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
‘I am guilty’<\/strong><\/p>\n
Meanwhile, while one man avoided the death penalty, another willingly underwent lethal injection.<\/p>\n
Strapped to a gurney in the Alabama execution chamber, Dearman said to the families of his victims: “Forgive me. This is not for me. This is for you. I’ve taken so much.”<\/p>\n
He also told his own family he loved them.<\/p>\n
The lethal injection was carried out after Dearman dropped his appeals this year and asked the execution went ahead.<\/p>\n
“I am guilty. It’s not fair to the victims or their families to keep prolonging the justice that they so rightly deserve,” he wrote in a letter to the judge in April.<\/p>\n
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<\/div>The home near Citronelle where Dearman killed five people. (Image:<\/span> AP)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
On 20 August 2016, at a home near Citronelle, Alabama, Shannon Randall, 35, Joseph Turner, 26, Robert Lee Brown, 26, Justin Reed, 23, and Chelsea Reed, 22, were all killed.<\/p>\n
All of the victims were related or married and Chelsea Reed, who was married to Justin Reed, was pregnant.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Bryant Randall, the father of Chelsea Reed said: “I so long for a final goodbye to my daughter and I would have loved to meet my grandchild.<\/p>\n
“I was stripped in many ways of happiness and the bond of family by your [Dearman’s] senseless act.”<\/p>\n
The father of Robert Lee Brown said his family will “suffer for the rest of their lives”.<\/p>\n
“This don’t bring nothing back. I can’t get my son back or any of them back,” he added.<\/p>\n
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