Execution To Be First Since Penalty Upheld

Supreme Court Ruled Death Penalty Constitutional In April; Convicted Killer Scheduled For Execution In Ga.

(CBS/AP)  A Georgia board Monday denied condemned killer William Earl Lynd's clemency bid, paving the way for him to likely become the nation's first inmate put to death since the U.S. Supreme Court held that lethal injection is constitutional.

Lynd still had an appeal pending before the Georgia Supreme Court seeking to stay his execution, which was scheduled for Tuesday at 7 p.m. It was unclear when the state's top court would act on that request.

He was convicted of fatally shooting his live-in girlfriend, Ginger Moore, two days before Christmas in 1988. His lawyer asked both the Georgia Supreme Court and the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles for a 90-day stay of execution, and a commutation of his sentence.

Attorney Tom Dunn has argued that medical testimony presented at Lynd's 1990 trial was unreliable and the jury that sentenced him to death never learned of a possible mitigating factor: He had been sexually molested by neighbors at age 8.

Dunn made his case to the parole board behind closed doors for about two hours Monday. He declined to comment after the hearing. Prosecutors were expected to make their case Monday afternoon, and the board's decision was expected by the end of the day.

If the courts do not intervene, Lynd's execution would be the first since the U.S. Supreme Court last month upheld Kentucky's lethal injection protocol, clearing the way for executions to resume in the roughly three dozen states that use that method.

Fourteen other executions are scheduled in the next six months across America. But as CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann reports, more states are reconsidering capital punishment, and reaching very different conclusions.

Wrongful convictions are one reason why lawmakers in five states are seriously debating repealing capital punishment. But five other states have moved in a very different direction -- passing laws that expanded death row to execute people convicted of a crime other than murder.

Prosecutors at Lynd's trial said Moore suffered a slow agonizing death, regaining consciousness twice after successive gunshot wounds to the head at the home she and Lynd shared in Berrien County, in south Georgia. The medical examiner testified that Moore was still alive when Lynd stuffed her into the trunk of her car and took a drive. Lynd confessed to authorities that when he heard her thumping around in the trunk, he opened it and fired the final lethal shot.

The allegation that Lynd kidnapped Moore before she died was an essential "aggravating" circumstance that made him eligible for the death penalty. It also helped prosecutors show the slaying was premeditated.

But Lynd's lawyers argue the medical examiner who did Moore's autopsy was not a physician and was wrong in asserting that she would have been able to regain consciousness after the second shot.

A doctor hired by the defense to examine the evidence found that Moore did not survive the second gunshot wound and was already dead when she was placed in the trunk, making Lynd innocent of the kidnapping charge. The original medical examiner, Warren Tillman, now agrees it is unlikely she was alive when placed in the car, according to Dunn's legal filing.

Dunn said Lynd and Moore had consumed Valium, alcohol and marijuana and were in a heated argument over a trip to Florida when he shot her.

"This crime was hot blooded and without premeditation," reads Dunn's application to the parole board. "Tragic - yes. Cold blooded - no."

Meanwhile, a Mexican-born Texas prisoner whose death sentence set off an international dispute and a U.S. Supreme Court rebuke of the White House, also received an execution date Monday.

Texas State District Judge Caprice Cosper set the Aug. 5 lethal injection for 33-year-old Jose Medellin for his participation in the gang rape and strangulation deaths of two teenage girls 15 years ago in Houston when they stumbled upon a gang initiation rite.

The Supreme Court in March refused to hear Medellin's appeal, saying President Bush overstepped his authority by ordering Texas to reopen his case and the cases of 50 other Mexican nationals condemned for murders in the U.S. Texas refused to comply.

Medellin is among 14 native Mexicans on death row in Texas. Mexico has no death penalty and sued the United States in the world court in 2003. Mexico and other opponents of capital punishment have sought to use the world court to fight for foreigners facing execution in the U.S.

And someone who sits in front of a computer screen playing stupid games....

fibonacci_ is a Plagiarist.

17th March 2006, 08:09 PM #5
Fibonacci_
Guest


Posts: n/a

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For those that are familiar with it ... "Serernity: The RPG" is based on the Savage Worlds system.

nahhh....Dealing with punks like you is fun.

[fibonacci_]

mitchoncbs = microcephalous.

[fibonacci_]

mitchoncbs, really pushed your buttons didnt I?

[pensacola88]

So strange...burning witches tied to a stake....poisoning convicts tied to a gurney...

The righteousness of a group of men, who aspire to play God and decide who lives and dies based on criteria born of human opinion. The obsession with guilt and disability to forgive has branded itself upon the justice system as arcane as crime itself.

fibonacci_, you''re just a nut who spouts off statistics without providing proof other than what you can copy and paste from the Internet. And since you are sitting on your fat duff behind the computer screen with sticky substances on your keyboard, I doubt seriously you would say the things you say in front of anyone. Just a coward with a computer.

[mjvw2]

go Georgia go

[fibonacci_]

He he.