Texas Executes 400th Inmate
Huntsville, Texas - The state of Texas executed a convicted murderer by lethal injection on Wednesday, in its 400th execution since the US Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.
Johnny Conner was pronounced dead at 6:20 pm (2320 GMT), eight minutes after he was injected with the lethal concoction.
“What is happening to me now is unjust and the system is broken,” said the 32-year-old African-American as he lay strapped to the execution gurney.
“Please forgive me,” he said in his three-minute long final statement, addressing his victim’s sister who sat among the sobbing witnesses on both sides of the chamber. Members of Conner’s own family were also present.
“I bear witness there is no God but Allah and the Prophet Mohammed. Unto Allah, I belong, unto Allah I return. I love you,” were his last words.
Conner was sentenced to die for killing Kathy Ann Nguyen, 49, by shooting her in the face at the counter at a gasoline station and grocery store where she worked, in a holdup on May 17, 1998. He never confessed to the crime.
Around 14 protestors with signs, candles and Catholic rosaries, gathered outside the Huntsville “Walls” unit where the execution took place to protest the death penalty.
According to a 2007 Texas crime survey, three quarters of Texans are in favor of capital punishment.
In 2005, a federal judge annulled Conner’s death sentence because of shortcomings by his defense lawyers, who failed to summon any witnesses in his favor. But the ruling was overturned by a federal appeals court in January.
Earlier this month, the European Union had urged Texas Governor Rick Perry to consider a moratorium for all executions scheduled by his state. Perry rejected the appeal.
“While we respect our friends in Europe, welcome their investment in our state and appreciate their interest in our laws, Texans are doing just fine governing Texas,” Perry’s spokesman, Robert Black, said in a statement.
“Texans long ago decided that the death penalty is a just and appropriate punishment for the most horrible crimes against our citizens.”
Many US states have put a moratorium on executions, citing faulty court trials and verdicts and persistent problems in the lethal injection method most common across the country: but Texas continues to push ahead with almost weekly executions.
Since the 1976 reinstatement, Texas has accounted for more than one-third of the total 1,091 executions carried out country-wide. This year, with other states now reticent, it will account for nearly two-thirds.
Ahead of Conner’s execution, the southern state had carried out 20 of the 34 US judicial killings in 2007.
By comparison, 12 of the 50 states refused to restore capital punishment in 1976; four did but have not since executed anyone; and 14 have had five or fewer executions.
Three more executions are scheduled here for next week.
Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse
Who leads the world in murdering their fellow man on a per capita basis?
The real accomplices to murder, Bush et al, should be strapped down and given lethal injections, or for treason (outing a CIA agent), tied to a stake, have a bullseye pinned over their hearts and face a firing squad. Where can I sign up? But being against capital punishment, I’d settle for the lot of them being cell mates of burly, hardcore Texas lifers who like to dance and have their “salad tossed” - daily.
“I’d settle for the lot of them being cell mates of burly, hardcore Texas lifers who like to dance and have their “salad tossed” - daily.” by fuqbushthetroops.
LMFAO! you just made my day. The only question would be Jelly or Syrup with that salad tossing.
Nice portrayal of innate Texan barbarism and arrogance. So has the murder rate declined in your pathetic part of the USA since you have a death penalty? Just curious. How are the proper English lessons over there so that Texans do not sound like idiots? Hmmm?
My Mother always said “Nothing good ever came outta Texas”
Dear old Mom, she was rarely wrong and wasn’t on that pearl of wisdom either…
“So has the murder rate declined in your pathetic part of the USA since you have a death penalty?”
Yes, it has. From 1980-1994 murders in Texas averaged over 2000 per year - some years the total was well above 2500.
Since that year the average has dropped sharply to the 1200-1700 range.
All this has been accompanied by a substantial growth in the total population - so the net per capita murder rate is way down.
I feel for the poor lady that was working in the grocery store. Whether or not the system is broken, you don’t have the right to take someone’s life. The murder victim has been silent for nine years. Connor’s acts were unacceptable and inexcusable. Glad he’s not around anymore.
Nine years to execute has got to be some sort of speed record. In my state the average time on death row is over 20 years.
Maybe in the next 100 years, assuming the US (or the world) exists then, maybe the US will catch up with the rest of the developed nations of the world.
Sir Melvin, just to let you know, not all Texans are
totally stupid. And not all of us agree with the
death penalty. I’ll have to say I was in favor untill
I began to read about our wonderful justice system here
in Texas. Drunk defense attorneys, attorneys asleep
during the trial and the attitude among some law
officers that if the defendant is black, he must be
guilty of something. Also, DNA test have freed so
many prisoners that one should wonder how many
innocent people have already been put to death.
Thou shalt not kill.
Having the death penalty would indicate Texans must be infallible. However, George Bush proves they are not. He is one of the most deserving candidates for the death penalty if I thought justice really existed and that law applied to all.
If he wasn’t guilty, why did he ask the victem’s sister to forgive him?
I believe “thou shalt not kill” says it all. I don’t believe there were exceptions. Capital punishment is just murder/killing by the State.
I guess Johnny Ray Conner never learned that Bible quote.
In the name of God, the All-Merciful, the Mercy-giving
This government has no right to execute anyone, frankly.Be just with yourself first before dealing out justice to others.
This is sick. Lethal injection is barbaric.
Not to mention that this is the U.S. injustice system were talking about. The man never confessed and therefore you cannot execute him. Our court systems are notorious for executing–I’m sorry, murdering–innocent people.
Its better to have a hundred murderers free and about than execute one single innocent man.
But sadly, people are so eager to deal out life and death, its like we forget that we ourselves are in so much need of mercy.
May God forgive and place in Heaven both Johnny Conner and Kathy Ann Nguyen.
If it were a perfect system, I do believe that for the most heinous crimes, the state has no option but to take the offender’s life, where there is no chance for rehabilitation, and where keeping someone for a ludicrously prolonged time on death-row constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, not to mention the financial cost to society of keeping someone incarcerated. Having said that, in our present system, it boils down to the stats - at which point does an individual accept the stats - if one in a million people executed are innocent, one in 100, one in 459? Surely just one innocent person is enough to demand a total moratorium.
The criminal’s sickness is society’s sickness. The one begets the other.
This is a sensitive issue and opens fiery discussions on both sides of the table.
I’m a liberal, but the death penalty is the only area where my point of view takes a conservative turn. I believe that Johnny Conner deserved what he got. He’s a scumbag and a killer. For those kind of people, I have a tall tree, short rope mentality. I have alot of liberal friends that disagree with me on this and we’ve had lots of roundabouts. We see eye to eye on nearly every other issue.
littlem85 said : Its better to have a hundred murderers free and about than execute one single innocent man.
I agree with that. NO innocent person should be executed but Johnny Conner wasn’t innocent.
I’m a liberal but I’m also a victim rights advocate. Too many people want to let garbage like Johnny Conner go free. I stand with Ms. Nguyen who can’t say anything on her behalf because he killed her. I have no tolerance for people that commit murder and make the world a dangerous place to live. These people need to be removed from the gene pool.
Where is Liberty University? Defend the 10 commandments.
I used to be for the death penalty, too. Then I found out how much it costs and I began to wonder about the true nature of punishment. Does it punish the offenders more to put them to death or to let them live and contemplate why they are being punished? If I’m ready to put somebody else to death for a crime they’ve been convicted of, am I ready to believe that there is absolutely no reason to believe that just maybe they were wrongly convicted? I’m not. I also think that letting a felon rot for the rest of their lives in prison is far worse punishment than a quick, painless death.
True…thou shalt no kill. Having had the unfortunate experience of living in Texas for 4 years, it is one of the more backward places I have been (Panhandle Locale). People speak of Jesus out of one side of their mouth…and killing (war, death penalty) out of the other. Having seen a number of the small town newspapers in the breakroom of the plant I worked at…it was appalling to see the editorial pages and thoughts of the people who lived there. It “is” truly barbaric and thoughtless. A majority in that area certainly. There was a contingent of more forgiving and understanding people, but there was always the threat of redneck justice.
Yet another reason I left the US for a more civilized country.