Georgia Executes First Inmate In 7 Months

Death Penalty Had Effectively Been On Hold While Supreme Court Ruled On Constitutionality Of Lethal Injections

(CBS/AP)  A Georgia man has become the first inmate put to death since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of executions by lethal injection.

Convicted killer William Earl Lynd was pronounced dead at 7:51 p.m., a state prisons official says.

Lynd, 53, was convicted of kidnapping and shooting to death his 26-year-old girlfriend two days before Christmas in 1988.

The Supreme Court rejected a request for a stay of execution for Lynd, Tuesday, clearing the way for the landmark execution.

Lynd became the first death row inmate executed since the Supreme Court upheld the current lethal injection method last month, ending a de facto moratorium on capital punishment in the United States. The last execution took place on Sept. 25.

The Supreme Court ruled last month in a Kentucky case that the state's method of executing inmates with a three-drug cocktail did not violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Roughly three dozen states, including Georgia, use a similar 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.

Lynd has already selected his final meal: two pepper jack barbecue burgers with crisp onions; two baked potatoes with sour cream, bacon and cheese; and a strawberry milkshake.

Death penalty opponents planned vigils around Georgia on Tuesday.

"In light of the many well-documented problems with our death penalty system, it is disturbing that Georgia is rushing to lead the country in resuming the death penalty machinery," said Laura Moye, chairwoman of Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

Lynd, now 53, was sentenced to die for kidnapping and shooting his live-in girlfriend, Ginger Moore, 26, in south Georgia in 1988, after the two consumed Valium, marijuana and alcohol. Prosecutors said she suffered a slow, agonizing death, regaining consciousness twice after being shot in the head.

The five-member Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles on Monday rejected Lynd's clemency appeal without comment.

Texas conducted the nation's last execution, putting Michael Richard to death on Sept. 25, 2007, the same day the Supreme Court agreed to consider the Kentucky case, brought by two prisoners who claimed the lethal injection method violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

On Monday, a Texas judge set an Aug. 5 lethal injection date for Jose Medellin, 33, for his participation in the gang rape and strangulation deaths of two teenage girls when they stumbled upon a gang initiation rite 15 years ago in Houston.

The death sentence for the Mexican-born Medellin set off an international dispute and a U.S. Supreme Court rebuke of the White House after the high court in March refused to hear his 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.

In Mississippi, the state Supreme Court scheduled a May 21 execution for Earl Wesley Berry, convicted of kidnapping Mary Bounds from the parking lot of the First Baptist Church in Houston on Nov. 29, 1987. He beat her viciously then dumped her body in the woods.

Attorney General Jim Hood had requested that Berry be executed Monday, his 49th birthday. However, the court set the date for later this month after rejecting arguments from Berry's lawyers that he should be spared because he is mentally disabled and that the method of lethal injection is unconstitutional.

The U.S. Supreme Court had blocked Berry's last scheduled execution on Oct. 30, 2007, to consider the Kentucky case.

[fibonacci_]

KILL KILL KILL! YEEEAAA! CUT HIS HEAD OFF!!!

[beehive21-2009]

You killers need to stop acting like cowards and take it like a man,you killed someone,now get off the Earth.Why is facing death so hard ? when you crossed the line leave ,society has no more use for you,be a man kill yourselves,do society a favor for once,stop thinking only about yourselves.

Why don''t we just execute these people with carbon monoxide? It''s painless. No suffering. They will just go to sleep and then die.

[jackp32]

Enough rhetoric about the death penalty. Let''s get on with it.

[samrensho]

Bushit stacks the courts with Christo-fascists and insane McCain would do the same.

[fibonacci_]

Little tiny whiney McCain
Has a little Christian brain
Vote for him you''ll get the same
The same the same the same the same

[lochlan-2009]

Didn''t they just say yesterday that 17 people had been released from one town alone on DNA eveidence that proved they were innocent.

Don''t get me wrong I support the death penalty (especially, any violent act on children) maybe we should give them a second trial if given the death penalty or only with undeniable scientific proof rather than the "eyewitness", "beyond a reasonable doubt" proof.

[gopack443]

beehive21.
people on death row don''t have internet access, they can''t read what your trying to say to them.

[CBSTV]

Those who advocate killing are depraved. Their minds and morality have not evolved much from their caveman ancestors.

[fibonacci_]

studio41, I agree. They also fail to realize how barbaric the idea sounds in most countries of the world.

Homicide.

[mudrose-2009]

Good!

[fibonacci_]

KILL KILL KILL

[navyjimfl]

we don''t execute this sorry trash on death role nearly fast enough.......the one good thing about that Oklahoma bomber is he rejected his appeals......all these bleeding heart religious do gooders care about is the murderers rights......you can kiss my ***...

[parrot123-2009]

we don''''t execute this sorry trash on death role nearly fast enough.......the one good thing about that Oklahoma bomber is he rejected his appeals......all these bleeding heart religious do gooders care about is the murderers rights......you can kiss my ***...
Posted by navyjimfl at 12:01 PM : May 06, 2008

And to the Hundreds that were found to have been wrongfully convicted and sentenced to Death ???

[fibonacci_]

parrot123, to them a few is worth it. Or they just do not even acknowledge the argument.

[minnick8-2009]

DNA testing and evidence has come far enough that there should be no one on death row with a false conviction. Therefore, persons on death row whose involvment in a heinous crime is undeniable as the result of ironclad evidence should be put to death.

Why should we (the people) use our tax money to keep the scum bags alive? Why not use the money which would be used to keep them alive for a better purpose, such as improvement of schools, teachers, equipment, supplies? I would feel the same way if it were a member of my own family on death row and DNA evidence proved that family member''s involvement in a first degree murder.

[minnick8-2009]

I think it is so interesting that people who are against capitol punishment are left wing liberals. Those are the same people who are all in favor of killing the innocent unborn. I''ve never understood that.

[minnick8-2009]

studio41

Yup, that''s me, depraved. I most certainly do advocate ridding the world of vicious killers who have no remorse and would do it again if given an ounce of a chance. The reason they (the killers) are afraid to die themselves is because they know they will have to face an eternity in the depths of hell. No matter how long they put off facing their final judgement here, they will still face an eternity in the depths of hell.

[minnick8-2009]

fibonacci,

Yes, the rest of world is so refined and civilized. I''m thinking, of course, of the middle Eastern terrorists, Somalia, most African countries, Haitti, Asia, and all the countries, like Cambodia, who have lined up millions of innocent people and slaughtered them. Golly, I''m so glad I''m an American, I am free to move to any one of those countries any time I feel like it.

[minnick8-2009]

Oops, I remember, I''m staying here; I have no desire to move to another country.

[libh8er]

Wonder if they''re gonna allow him to vote absentee! LOL Inject him and get it over with.

[libh8er]

I''''ve never understood that.
Posted by minnick8 at 12:38 PM : May 06, 2008

It''s because a ''woman''s right to choose'' trumps society''s right to have punsihment fit the crime.
Liberalism is a mental disorder and is beyond most people''s rational thought processes.

[minnick8-2009]

Liberalism is a mental disorder and is beyond most people''''s rational thought processes.

Oh, I love that thought; thank you for sharing.

[fibonacci_]

No matter how long they put off facing their final judgement here, they will still face an eternity in the depths of hell.

Posted by minnick8

Silly little religious brain.

[rf35]

The problem we have is that people spend too long on death row. Once sentenced, the convicted should get one appeal. If the conviction is upheld, they should be executed no later than the next day. With the money that would save, we could improve education and social services to the extent that there would be fewer people commiting murder in the first place.

[fibonacci_]

Maybe the judge should say "I hereby sentence you to death" suddenly pull out a gun, and blow the guy away from the bench, then blow the smoke from the top of the barrel.

fibonacci_ = punk with a computer with no brain. probably a mommas boy with a little pimple between his legs

[fibonacci_]

mitchoncbs
go to www.iqtest.com and try to score above 130

If you quote someone, reference it and not make it look like your own. You plagiarized my idea, but that''s what you do all day long.

And I get my IQ testing done in a real school, not an Internet site where I can go back and do it again until the score is above 70, like you. 189 9/24/2007

[minnick8-2009]

Maybe the judge should say "I hereby sentence you to death" suddenly pull out a gun, and blow the guy away from the bench, then blow the smoke from the top of the barrel.

Quite right, good idea; quite right, good idea, quite right, good idea. Quote from the movie, Mary Poppins.

[fibonacci_]

mitchoncbs, what you mean?

I dont hate you, btw.

[minnick8-2009]

No matter how long they put off facing their final judgement here, they will still face an eternity in the depths of hell.

Silly little religious brain. Fibbanoci

While I have no empiricle evidence that there is a hell; you have none that there isn''t.

Blow that out your pipe.

[pensacola88]

The cost of justice to the government that administrates it, is not a factor in the process of determining guilt or innocence, or the level of punishment upon conviction. If it can be determined that any juror, prosecutor, or judge, factored the cost of the prosecution as part of the process, then every appellate court in this country automatically throws out the conviction and orders a new trial. That is the law.

My idea was given yesterday and it goes like this. Do be humane about an execution, the judge looks at the defendant in the eyes and says he is forgiven and is told he is free to go, when he turns around smiling, put a .45 through the back of his head. Cost for a hollow point .45 = 25 cents.

[fibonacci_]

While I have no empiricle evidence that there is a hell; you have none that there isn''''t.

Blow that out your pipe.

Posted by minnick8

What does that put us at 50/50? You have no proof that the tooth fairy doesnt exist. One time when I was 9 I put a tooth under my pillow in an envelope and the next morning I had a dollar, explain that.

[fibonacci_]

looooooooool mitchoncbs. OK. Did not read that one.

of course not, you were too busy ridiculing everyone over their beliefs. You are the one with a narrow tiny brain; no room for improvement, no room for constructive criticism, no room for anything except for the stupid little games you play on the Internet....probably would off yourself if your Internet goes down. GET A LIFE CREEP!!

Means my IQ, tested at MIT is a 189......easy enough for you now....

[fibonacci_]

lol

[fibonacci_]

I dont think you are completely stupid, definately not. But naive in the sense that many Americans are about the rest of the world definately.

[fibonacci_]

A 189 IQ means that you are more intelligent than 99.9999986669% of people, just for your info. Congrats.

And I could care less if you hated me or not...I give to my community every school year by tutoring to under privileged kids in mathematics at no charge during the school year, otherwise they would end up like you. The rest of my time is spent maintaining a large network of servers and workstations utilizing 7 different operating systems. I donate roughly 500 hours a year to my community with the satisfaction of knowing there will be kids graduating high school with a better knowledge of mathematics. Instead of them saying years from now, %u201CI hated math.%u201D

[fibonacci_]

In fact, according to statistics, you are one of the 80 most intelligent people in the world.

and you are wrong again.....a 189 IQ means nothing but my ability to analytically think things through.

are you getting your information from wikipedia? If so, you need to realize that site can be edited.

[fibonacci_]

Wow I guess you really are more intelligent than me.

I spent six years of my life in various parts of the world. Lived in the Philippines for over a year. Your use of the word naive is getting old. Have you ever witnessed a public execution? The US and UK are just two of very few places that will allow an appeal. Iraq has just 30 days from sentencing to execution.

[fibonacci_]

mitchoncbs, and Iraq had less executions than America in the last years. I have significant international experience as well. I do not really believe anything you say anymore though because it is clear you lied about your IQ.

My nineteen year old grand daughter probably has you beat as well.....and she only uses a computer to do term papers. Her research is done in a place called the Library. She doesn''t trust the information provided off of the Internet.