Chamblee54

The state of Georgia is planning to execute Marion Wilson Jr. He was convicted of the murder of Donovan Corey Parks on March 28, 1996. Mr. Wilson’s co-defendant, Robert Earl Butts was executed May 4, 2018. If you want more details, read the information below. The first account of the murder is a Press Release from the GA Attorney General.
“The evidence at trial showed that on the night of March 28, 1996, the victim, Donovan Corey Parks, entered a local Wal-Mart to purchase cat food, leaving his 1992 Acura Vigor parked in the fire lane directly in front of the store. Witnesses observed Wilson and Robert Earl Butts standing behind Parks in one of the store’s checkout lines and, shortly thereafter, speaking with Parks beside his automobile. A witness overheard Butts ask Parks for a ride, and several witnesses observed Wilson and Butts entering Parks’s automobile, Butts in the front passenger seat and Wilson in the back seat. Minutes later, Parks’s body was discovered lying face down on a residential street. Nearby residents testified to hearing a loud noise they had assumed to be a backfiring engine and to seeing the headlights of a vehicle driving from the scene.”
“On the night of the murder, law enforcement officers took inventory of the vehicles in the Wal-Mart parking lot. Butts’s automobile was among the vehicles remaining in the lot overnight. Based upon the statements of witnesses at the Wal-Mart, Wilson was arrested. A search of Wilson’s residence yielded a sawed-off shotgun loaded with the type of ammunition used to kill Parks, three notebooks of handwritten gang “creeds,” secret alphabets, symbols, and lexicons, and a photo of a young man displaying a gang hand sign.”
“Wilson gave several statements to law enforcement officers and rode in an automobile with officers indicating stops he and Butts had made in the victim’s automobile after the murder. According to Wilson’s statements, Butts had pulled out a sawed-off shotgun, had ordered Parks to drive to and then stop on Felton Drive, had ordered Parks to exit the automobile and lie on the ground, and had shot Parks once in the back of the head. Wilson and Butts then drove the victim’s automobile to Gray where they stopped to purchase gasoline. Wilson, who was wearing gloves, was observed by witnesses and videotaped by a security camera inside the service station.”
“Wilson and Butts then drove to Atlanta where they contacted Wilson’s cousin in an unsuccessful effort to locate a “chop shop” for disposal of the victim’s automobile. Wilson and Butts purchased two gasoline cans at a convenience store in Atlanta and drove to Macon where the victim’s automobile was set on fire. Butts then called his uncle and arranged a ride back to the Milledgeville Wal-Mart where Butts and Wilson retrieved Butts’s automobile.”
“Wilson’s wholehearted commitment to antisocial and violent conduct from the age of 12 on not only serves as a heavy weight on the aggravating side of the scale, it also renders essentially worthless some of the newly proffered mitigating circumstance evidence. …For example, a number of Wilson’s teachers signed affidavits, carefully crafted by his present counsel, claiming that Wilson was “a sweet, sweet boy with so much potential,” a “very likeable child,” who was “creative and intelligent,” and had a “tender and good side.” One even said that Wilson “loved being hugged.” A sweet, sensitive, tender, and hug-seeking youth does not commit arson, kill a helpless dog, respond to a son’s plea to quit harassing his elderly mother with a threat “to blow . . . that old bitch’s head off,” shoot a migrant worker just because he “wanted to see what it felt like to shoot someone,” assault a youth detention official, shoot another man in the head and just casually walk off—all before he was old enough to vote. Without provocation Wilson shot a human being when he was fifteen, shot a second one when he was sixteen, and robbed and shot to death a third one when he was nineteen. …”
Same violent crime — one set to die while the other waits presents another view of the murder. It was published April 27, 2018, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, by Rhonda Cook.
“Gang members Robert Earl Butts and Marion “Murdock” Wilson were together when they asked an off-duty correctional officer for a ride outside a Milledgeville Walmart the evening of March 28, 1996. They were together when, 16 minutes later, Butts shot Donovan Corey Parks with a sawed-off shotgun then left the 25-year-old lying face-down on a Milledgeville road. Together they doused Parks’ 1992 Acura Vigor with gasoline and set it on fire behind a Macon Huddle House. Just hours later, the pair applied for landscaping jobs. …”
“Donovan Parks, like his father, became a prison guard after graduating high school. But the younger Parks had plans, his father said. Instead of making corrections his career, he wanted to attend college. The night that he was killed, Parks, a Jehovah’s Witness, had just come home from Bible study at the Milledgeville Kingdom Hall, across the street from the house he shared with his recently-widowed father. Parks was still wearing his tie and checkered grey suit when he left for a quick trip to Walmart for cat food. According to then-District Attorney Fred Bright, Butts and Wilson also had gone to the Walmart, “shopping for somebody to kill.” Prosecutors said the two 18-year-olds were looking to make an impression on other members of their gang, FOLK Nation.”
“At 9:50 p.m., Parks handed a Walmart cashier $7.93 for four cans of cat food, tropical fish food, soap and cocoa butter. Behind him, Butts waited to pay for a 20-cent pack of Wrigley’s chewing gum. Butts worked with Parks at a local Burger King and he asked for a ride for him and Wilson. A single-barrel sawed-off shotgun hidden in the sleeve of his Colorado Rockies jacket, Butts got in the front passenger seat. Wilson climbed in the back after Parks cleared out a spot for him to sit. Minutes later, on street dotted with pre-fabricated houses, Wilson grabbed Parks’ necktie, cinching it so tightly it later had to be cut off. Butts ordered Parks out of the car and shot him in the back of the head, leaving the officer face-down in his own blood and brain matter. …”
“Moments after Parks was shot, his father, came up on a body in the road but didn’t recognize his son because of the damage done by the large buckshot. The father called the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office to report that someone had been hit by a car. Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills, who was the chief deputy in Baldwin County at the time, was able to identify the dead man only by matching the initials in the dead man’s class ring to the roster of seniors at Baldwin High School in 1990; there was only one person with the initials DCP.”
“Wilson was arrested four days later at the courthouse when he came to an appointment related to a DUI conviction. Butts was hiding in his grandmother’s bedroom closet when authorities came for him. Detectives found the shotgun under Wilson’s mattress. Wilson’s girlfriend said she saw Butts hand him the weapon.”
“Talking to investigators Wilson blamed Butts for everything. He said he had nothing to prove because he was “chief enforcer” with the local FOLK Nation gang. “I’m as high (in the gang) as I can be. I ain’t got to go no higher. I ain’t got to do nothing to go no higher.” …”
“Butts, meanwhile, denied everything at first but then decided to testify at his trial and to lay it all on Wilson. Butts testified that it was Wilson’s idea to steal a car and it was Wilson who “snatched him out” of the car and took him to the back and shot him. “I was scared…” Butts testified. “I was really upset. And I was feeling, you know, kind of sick at the stomach.”
Mr. Wilson was convicted of the crime, and sentenced to death. There appears to be little doubt that he is guilty. In the appeals, attorneys made the traditional claim of ineffective counsel. “A federal judge granted Marion Wilson Jr. the right to appeal part of his case, in which Wilson will be able to argue that his trial attorneys didn’t properly investigate whether they could build a defense around evidence that Wilson’s early life influenced how he acted. … In Wilson’s federal case, Wilson claimed prosecutors switched their stories to claim that both Wilson and Butts had pulled the trigger. (U.S. District Judge Marc ) Treadwell rejected those and most other arguments. … The court ruling suggests that Wilson was born to a drug-using mother who neglected him, was abandoned by his father, and was physically abused. The family moved frequently, and Wilson saw one of his mother’s boyfriend hold a gun to her head. … Wilson committed his first serious felony at age 12 when he set a duplex apartment on fire in Glynn County while the neighbors were home. At 15, he saw a passing Mexican migrant and told friends he was going to rob the man and “wanted to see what it felt like to shoot somebody,” witnesses said. After the shooting, he attacked a worker at a regional youth development center. A day after he shot a dog for no reason, he was charged with possession of crack cocaine with intent to distribute. A month after that, he shot a man three times. … In a recording played during sentencing, Wilson admitted he was the “chief enforcer” of the Milledgeville FOLKS gang. … In January 1996, Wilson wrote from prison to another gang member: “You know it’s all about that Money, Mackin, Murder, and that should be our main priority; We should be making more money … and murdering all that oppose our nation, but only when necessary.”
During appeals, attorney’s sought “DNA testing on a necktie that was introduced as evidence during their client’s trial in the murder case of Parks … The court also pointed out that there was evidence and eyewitness testimony that Wilson had on gloves on the night of the murder. A videotape showed he was wearing gloves on the night of the crimes. “Accordingly, the lack of his DNA or the presence of Butts’s DNA on the tie would not acquit defendant (Wilson),” the court ruled.”
One appeal led to a bit of esoteric legal geekery. “Should the court look to the state Superior Court judge’s lengthy order, which gives detailed reasons as to how certain findings and decisions were reached? Or should the court look only at the state Supreme Court’s one-word decision — “Denied” — when it declined to hear an appeal of the Superior Court judge’s ruling. … This is an important distinction because federal courts can step in to correct a state court conviction when there is a finding the state court decision upholding that conviction misapplied clearly established U.S. Supreme court law or was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts. In death cases, if the 11th Circuit only has to rely on the state Supreme Court’s one-word decision declining to hear an appeal of the lower-court judge’s opinion, then the federal appeals court can come up with its own reasons as to why the death sentence should continue to be upheld. The court could not offer such speculation, however, if it must look at the detailed ruling by the lower-court judge. Instead, the appeals court would only review the reasonableness and adequacy of the state court judge’s ruling.” … The 11th Circuit, in a decision written by Judge Bill Pryor, ruled that his court only had to look at a terse, summary opinion by the Georgia Supreme Court when it declines to hear an appeal of a lengthy and detailed ruling by a state Superior Court judge.”
The execution is scheduled for June 20, 2019, for a crime committed March 28, 1996. Historic photographs are from The Library of Congress. UPDATE Marion Wilson has ordered his final meal one medium thin-crust pizza with everything, 20 buffalo wings, one pint of butter pecan ice cream, some apple pie and grape juice. UPDATE Marion Wilson Jr. died at 9:52 pm, June 20, 2019.

The state of Georgia is planning to execute Scotty Garnell Morrow on May 2. He was convicted of the murder of Barbara Ann Young And Tonya Woods. If you want more details, continue to read. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
“Barbara Ann Young began dating Scotty Morrow in June 1994 and she broke up with him in December 1994 because of his abusive behavior. At 9:52 a.m. on December 29, 1994, Morrow telephoned Ms. Young at her home, but she told him that she wanted him to leave her alone. After hanging up, Morrow drove to Ms. Young’s home and entered without permission. Ms. Young was in the kitchen with two of her friends, Tonya Woods and LaToya Horne. Two of Ms. Young’s children, five-year-old Christopher and eight-month-old Devonte, were also present. There was an argument in the kitchen and Ms. Woods told Morrow to leave because Ms. Young did not want to have anything to do with him anymore. Morrow yelled, “Shut your mouth, bitch!” and pulled a nine-millimeter pistol from his waistband. He shot Ms. Woods in the abdomen and Ms. Horne in the arm. The bullet that struck Ms. Woods severed her spinal cord, paralyzing her from the waist down.”
“Ms. Young fled down the hallway and into her bedroom. Morrow caught her in the bedroom and beat her on the head and face. She managed to flee back to the hallway where Morrow grabbed her by the hair and shot her point-blank in the head, killing her. From his hiding place in a nearby bedroom, Christopher saw Morrow kill his mother. Morrow returned to the kitchen. Testimony as to clicking noises and the fact that a live cartridge was found on the kitchen floor indicate that he either reloaded his pistol or cleared a jam. He then placed the muzzle of the pistol an inch from Ms. Woods’ chin and killed her with a shot to the head. The medical examiner opined that, although she was paralyzed, Ms. Woods had not lost much blood at that time and was probably still conscious when the fatal shot was fired. Morrow also shot Ms. Horne two more times, in the face and the arm, and fled after cutting the telephone line.”
“Despite her injuries, which included a shattered palate, permanent deafness in one ear, and nerve damage in an arm, Ms. Horne managed to get to her feet and run to a neighbor’s house. She and Christopher told the responding police officers that Morrow was the shooter. Morrow confessed after his arrest and the murder weapon was found hidden in his backyard. At trial, Morrow admitted that he shot the victims because he “wanted [Ms. Woods] to shut up.””
“The crimes occurred on December 29, 1994. The grand jury indicted Morrow on March 6, 1995, for malice murder (two counts), felony murder (two counts), aggravated assault (six counts), aggravated battery, cruelty to a child, burglary, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. The State filed its notice of intent to seek the death penalty on May 1, 1995. The trial was held June 7-29, 1999. The jury convicted Morrow on all counts on June 26, 1999, and recommended a death sentence on June 29, 1999.”
During appeals, the court appointed defense attorneys, Harold Walker Jr. and William Brownell Jr., were said to be incompetent. The specific charge was that they did not uncover evidence that Mr. Morrow was sexually abused as a child. “Morrow contends that we should vacate his sentence on the grounds that his trial attorneys provided ineffective assistance when they failed to uncover and introduce mitigating evidence from Morrow’s childhood and when they failed to hire an independent crime-scene expert to corroborate Morrow’s account of the murders.”
“… it is now unquestionable that Petitioner Scotty Morrow was sexually abused as a child. Childhood sexual abuse has a profound and debilitating impact on childhood development. … Morrow’s Trial Counsel failed to present evidence of his childhood abuse/trauma, making Morrow a poor witness in his own defense. Moreover, it “is clear that Trial Counsel’s investigation did not include meaningful inquiry into any portion of Petitioner’s formative years.” Based on its conclusive review of this important life experience that was never presented at trial, the Superior Court of Butts County granted the petition for a writ of habeas corpus and vacated Morrow’s death sentence, ruling Morrow was denied effective assistance of counsel at his sentencing hearing. His Trial Counsel did not provide enough mitigating evidence, especially the evidence of the abuse. The habeas court understood that Morrow was a poor witness in his own self-defense; by blunting his emotions, Morrow looked “flat, callous, and stoic,” and thus unsympathetic to the jury. Dr. Buchanan, a psychologist who testified at the trial without knowing anything about Morrow’s abuse history, admitted that knowledge about Morrow’s abuse would have made a difference in the trial. … Petitioner was also the victim of a series of rapes during this time period. Credible evidence exists that Earl Green, . . . sexually assaulted Petitioner in the basement on multiple occasions. During the time frame of these assaults, Petitioner began to wet the bed and display behavioral and adjustment problems. Additional evidence corroborates the assault evidence against Earl Green. We now know that Morrow had problems at school and was chased home by bullies when he was a student. George May, Morrow’s mother’s new partner, also beat him while he was naked.”
Others see things differently. “The Georgia Supreme Court reasonably concluded that trial counsel conducted an adequate investigation. Counsel made inquiries that would have uncovered the new mitigating evidence were it not for the silence of Morrow and his family. On the issue of rape, the Georgia Supreme Court found “that Morrow never reported any such rapes pre-trial to his counsel or to the mental health experts who questioned him about his background, including his sexual history.” … And counsel subjected Morrow to several psychological interviews that extensively probed Morrow’s family and sexual history but turned up no evidence of abuse. … We fail to understand what else counsel could have done to uncover the rape. Morrow and the alleged rapist are the only witnesses to the rape, and Morrow does not contend that he reported the assault, so any further inquiry would have been fruitless without Morrow’s cooperation. And counsel had no reason to doubt Morrow’s honesty.” The appeal did not work.
UPDATE: Scotty Morrow was pronounced dead at 9:38 pm, May 2, 2019. “Scotty Morrow requested a last meal of a hamburger with mayonnaise, two chicken and waffle meals, a pint of butter pecan ice cream, a bag of buttered popcorn, two all-beef franks, and a large lemonade.” Scotty Morrow’s final words: “I love you all. God bless.”

Scott Raymond Dozier was convicted of two nasty murders. “In 2005, Dozier was sentenced to 22 years in prison for shooting 26-year-old Jasen Greene, whose body was found in 2002 in a shallow grave outside Phoenix. A witness testified that Dozier used a sledgehammer to break Greene’s limbs so the corpse would fit in a plastic tote that Dozier used to transport meth, equipment and chemicals. Dozier was sentenced to die for robbing, killing and dismembering 22-year-old Jeremiah Miller at a Las Vegas motel in 2002. Miller had come to Nevada to buy ingredients to make meth. His decapitated torso was found in a suitcase in an apartment building trash bin, also missing lower legs and hands. He was identified by tattoos on the shoulders. His head was never found.”
Life in prison did not agree with Mr. Dozier, and he grew weary of the appeals process. “… on October 31 (2016) he sent a handwritten letter to Clark County District Judge Jennifer Togliatti: “I, Scott Raymond Dozier…of sound mind, do hereby request that my death sentence be enacted and I be put to death.” … Last July, Togliatti summoned him to court. By then, it was clear that the state would struggle to find execution drugs and that such problems had been tied to painful, botched executions in other states. “That has not dissuaded you from asking me to sign this warrant?” she asked. “Quite frankly, your honor, all those people ended up dead,” Dozier said, “and that’s my goal here.”
“Just Bang Me Up, Man” was how Mr. Dozier put it in a later interview. A handsome, articulate man, Mr. Dozier is a movie waiting to be made. That interview, and another one here, are full of zesty quotes. “The public is ambivalent and apathetic, and maybe there will be 10 minutes of entertainment on the news. Maybe a few sick people will spend too much time with it on social media.”
There was only one problem. Nevada, like many other states, likes giving death sentences more than carrying them out. “It also creates a dilemma for states that want the harshness of death sentences without the messiness of carrying them out. The legal scholars (and siblings) Jordan Steiker and Carol Steiker have written that states like Nevada are “symbolic,” sentencing many people to death — in 2017, Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, obtained the second-most death sentences of any county in the country — but rarely executing anyone. California, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania together house nearly 1,000 death row prisoners; all told, they have executed just 22 people in the last four decades. … “We don’t kill them in Nevada unless they agree to it,” said Clark County public defender Scott Coffee. “What you’ve got with Dozier is state-assisted suicide.”
“The last execution (in Nevada) had taken place in 2006, years before pharmaceutical companies had tried to stop states from using their drugs to kill prisoners. In September 2016, Nevada corrections department director James Dzurenda sought drugs from 247 different suppliers; none were interested. Dozier’s decision added pressure to the search, and in August of last year, Dzurenda sent a letter to the Association of State Correctional Administrators, asking if other states had extra drugs they might send to Nevada. Dzurenda’s search was evidently unfruitful. Later that month, prison officials announced a solution: They would settle for drugs they could get. That included fentanyl (the opioid known for causing thousands of overdose deaths around the country), diazepam (the anti-anxiety drug better known as Valium), and cisatracurium (a paralytic first discovered on the tips of poisoned arrows in South America).”
“Much is still unknown. Brooke Keast, a department spokeswoman, said in an email the full protocol — which may include the order of the drugs, who will administer them, and who will witness the execution — will be released in the coming weeks, and that the drugs were “suggested” by the state’s Chief Medical Officer John DiMuro.” “Dr. DiMuro said he created the untried execution protocol “based it on procedures common in open-heart surgery.””
“Several medical professionals say there is no obvious explanation for why these drugs were selected. “It doesn’t make much sense; you don’t need Valium if you have fentanyl,” said Susi Vassallo, a NYU professor … Valium “makes you sleepy,” and can kill in large doses, but fentanyl also brings about unconsciousness without pain, and the drug’s deadliness is well-known, having caused thousands of overdose deaths around the country in recent years.”
“The potential problems will come with cisatracurium, which is related to curare, a paralyzing agent first discovered in South America, where indigenous people used it to poison the tips of their hunting arrows. Fentanyl can stop the heart, but it is short acting and will need to be given in a massive ongoing dose, because otherwise the prisoner may wake up. If he does, the cisatracurium will mask his consciousness while also potentially giving him the sensation — unobservable by witnesses — of being unable to breathe. “People who have recovered from it have said that they couldn’t breathe, and they knew they were suffocating,” Vassallo said. “The paralytic is only going to disguise whether the fentanyl is being administered properly.” It is for this reason, she said, that the American College of Veterinarians forbids the use of paralytics when animals are euthanized.”
“The fentanyl and diazepam “may be trying to block the experience of suffocation,” said Joel B. Zivot, an Emory University anesthesiologist … “The fentanyl takes away pain, and the Valium takes away anxiety. Both drugs are limited in their ability to do that, and of course neither is designed to block the pain or anxiety of death. So that’s just a show. This is not actually science, It’s not actually medicine. It is a grotesque impersonation of those things.”
“Mark Heath, a professor of anesthesiology at Columbia University” said “if the fentanyl or the sedative Valium … —“don’t work as planned, or if they are administered incorrectly,” then the prisoner would be awake and conscious during the execution. “It would be an agonizing way to die, but the people witnessing wouldn’t know anything had gone wrong because you wouldn’t be able to move” because of the paralytic drug, he said. …. Joel Zivot said the protocol is the latest in a series of attempts by states to “obtain certain drugs, try them out on prisoners, and see if and how they die.” The states, he said, have “no medical or scientific basis” for selecting the execution drugs. Fordham University law professor Deborah Denno … criticized the states for continuing to adopt experimental drug protocols. The reason for the change in protocols, she said, is “not really for the prisoner. It’s for the people who have to watch it happen. We don’t want to feel squeamish or uncomfortable. We don’t want executions to look like what they really are: killing someone.”
“The Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that some pain does not make an execution cruel and unusual punishment. “While most humans wish to die a painless death, many do not have that good fortune,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in Glossip v. Gross. “Holding that the Eighth Amendment demands the elimination of essentially all risk of pain would effectively outlaw the death penalty altogether.”
The pending execution became news when “Clark County District Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez ruled in favor of the company that makes midazolam, which sued the state, saying Nevada had illegitimately acquired the product for the execution. It wants the state to return its stock of the drug to the company. Gonzalez granted a temporary restraining order….The drug maker, Alvogen, and the state are scheduled to return to court September 10 for another hearing in the case.”
Chamblee54 has written about the death penalty drug problem several times. (one two three four) Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The photographer was Jack Delano, working in Greene County, Georgia, in May, 1941. The Marshall Project was a valuable source for this report.

This chamblee54 feature discusses various methods used to put condemned criminals to death. This report gets a bit gross at times. If you want to skip over the text, you will be excused. Chamblee54 has written about lethal injection problems one, two, three, four, five, six, seven times. In 2007, the New York Times published The Needle and the Damage Done, which discusses these issues in detail. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
One of the odder parts of tonight’s scheduled execution is the request of J.W. Ledford to be shot, instead of poisoned. Al Jazeera is one of many to report the story. JW Ledford Jr lawyers want firing squad, not injection “J.W. Ledford, 45, suffers from chronic nerve pain that has been treated with increasing doses of the prescription drug gabapentin for more than a decade, his lawyers said in a federal case filed on Thursday. They cited experts who said long-term exposure to gabapentin alters brain chemistry, making pentobarbital unreliable to render him unconscious and devoid of sensation or feeling. “Accordingly, there is a substantial risk that Mr Ledford will be aware and in agony as the pentobarbital attacks his respiratory system, depriving his brain, heart, and lungs of oxygen as he drowns in his own saliva,” the legal case said. That would violate the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment in the Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution, Ledford’s lawyers argued.”
Is the firing squad more humane than lethal injection? One is certainly messier than the other. The appearance to the observer is important. People want executions to be neat and tidy, with the executee in minimal pain. This is one reason for chemical agent number two in the three drug lethal cocktail. A paralytic is used, so that people won’t see the soon-to-be-deceased thrashing about as the heart is chemically shut down.
The firing squad is fast. Ammunition does not need to be purchased from a compounding pharmacy. Any pain will be over very quickly. In his book “In his book ‘Elephants on Acid: And Other Bizarre Experiments’, Alex Boese states that in the 1938 execution of John Deering, the prison physician monitoring the inmate’s heartbeat reported that the time between the shots and complete cessation of rhythm was a mere 15 seconds.” The idea is for the marksmen to shoot the prisoner in the heart.
Hanging is another time honored method of execution. If done properly, it is very efficient. Of course this is the government at work, so things do not always go smoothly. Hanging has unfortunate visuals, and is associated with lynching. It is not well thought of today.
“The modern method of judicial hanging is called the long drop. … In the long drop, those planning the execution calculate the drop distance required to break the subject’s neck based on his or her weight, height and build. They typically aim to get the body moving quickly enough after the trap door opens to produce between 1,000 and 1,250 foot-pounds of torque on the neck when the noose jerks tight. This distance can be anywhere from 5 to 9 feet. With the knot of the noose placed at the left side of the subject’s neck, under the jaw, the jolt to the neck at the end of the drop is enough to break or dislocate a neck bone called the axis, which in turn should sever the spinal cord.”
“Unfortunately, history shows that hanging is relatively easy to botch, particularly if the executioners make a mistake in their calculations. A rope that is too long can result in decapitation, whilst one that is too short can cut off breathing and blood flow through the carotid arteries in the neck. In these circumstances loss of consciousness is not always as quick, and the condemned can end up struggling for nearly 30 minutes.”
Hanging is still used in Iran. In Iran, prisoners are usually pulled up by their necks with the use of cranes. “It takes them many minutes to die, it’s a way of torturing them along with the execution,” Amiry-Moghaddam said. “Two years ago, a man had survived 14 minutes of hanging before dying. So hanging is not intended as the standard way of momentary pain. It’s not that they just die, it is a slow strangulation.” Many death penalty advocates approve of the added suffering.
The twentieth century gave us two modern methods of offing the condemned, the gas chamber, and the electric chair. “Lethal gas takes too long; the 1992 lethal-gas execution of Donald Harding in Arizona was so long — 11 minutes — and so grotesque that the attorney general threw up and the warden threatened to quit if he were required to execute someone by gas again. The electric chair often results in horrible odors and burns; in Florida, in the 1990s, at least two inmates heads’ caught fire, and the chair routinely left the body so thoroughly cooked that officials had to let the corpse cool before it could be removed.”
“First used to execute axe-murderer William Kemmler in 1890, a high voltage alternating current is applied to the body of the criminal, typically starting at 2,000 volts and 5 amps with the voltage varying periodically. This causes instant contraction and rigidity of the muscles, leading to a cessation of heart and lung activity.
The practice figured prominently in a dispute between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse regarding the relative merits of direct vs. alternating current. Edison sought to prove that the latter was too dangerous and so decided to equip the new Electric Chair at America’s ‘Sing Sing’ prison with one of the his competitor’s AC generators. Unfortunately the inexperienced executioners drastically underestimated the amount of electricity required to effectively kill Kemmler. At first they only succeeded in burning him for 17 seconds, at the end of which he was still twitching. It took a second jolt for a further 70 seconds before he was finally pronounced dead. Westinghouse was later heard to comment, “they could have done better with an axe”.”
The Guillotine was popular in France for many years. At first glance, it would seem to be efficient, though messy. Closer examination reveals some problems. “Often the blade didn’t do its job and the victim was only injured. He would then either bleed to death or the blade would have to be cranked up and dropped again. … But even when the blade was quick and efficient, many witnesses said the victim’s head didn’t die instantly. Reports of grimacing, facial twitches, blinking eyes, mouth movements, and even speech from the severed head are numerous.” (A commenter to the linked post disputes this. Rumors that Robespierre was executed face up are probably false.)
“In 1905, Dr. Beaurieux reported on his close examination of Henri Languille’s guillotine execution. While he watched, the blade did its thing and Languille’s head dropped into the basket. Beaurieux had luck on his side when the head landed on its severed neck in an upright position. This allowed him to observe Languille’s face without having to touch the head or set it up right.
“The eyelids and lips of the guillotined man worked in irregularly rhythmic contractions for about five or six seconds” “I called in a strong, sharp voice: “Languille!” I saw the eyelids slowly lift up, without any spasmodic contractions……but with an even movement, quite distinct and normal, such as happens in everyday life, with people awakened or torn from their thoughts.” “Next Languille’s eyes very definitely fixed themselves on mine and the pupils focused themselves.”

The State of Georgia is planning to execute Robert Earl Butts for the 1996 murder of Donovan Corey Parks. The short version is that Mr. Butts, and accomplice Marion “Mookie” Wilson, asked Mr. Parks for a ride. They shot him, and stole his car. They were convicted, and both Mr. Butts and Mr. Wilson were sentenced to death. The long version of the story is below. The majority of this story is from the Attorney General of Georgia. Material from other sources will be used.
“The evidence adduced at trial showed that on the night of Thursday, March 28, 1996, Butts and Marion Wilson, Jr., drove in Butts’s automobile to a local Wal-Mart store and began searching for a victim. Butts entered the store wearing a coat, under which he likely concealed the murder weapon. A witness observed Butts and Wilson standing behind Donovan Corey Parks in a checkout line. The cashier for that checkout line also remembered Butts being in her line. The store’s receipts showed that Butts purchased a pack of chewing gum immediately after Parks made his purchase of pet supplies. A witness overheard Butts asking Parks for a ride. After Parks moved items in his automobile to make room for Butts and Wilson, Butts sat in the front passenger seat and Wilson sat in the back seat behind Parks. According to a witness to whom Butts confessed, Butts revealed the shotgun a short distance away, and Parks was ordered to stop the automobile. Wilson dragged Parks out of the automobile by his tie and ordered him to lie face down on the pavement. Butts then fired one fatal shot to the back of Parks’s head with the shotgun. Witnesses nearby heard the shot, believing it to be a backfiring vehicle.”
“Outside the store, they asked for a ride and then forced Parks to drive to the side street off Ga. 49. Parks’ father, Freddie Parks, had attended church with his son that day and later found his body in a puddle of blood. “I had no idea it was my own son,” he testified at trial.”
“After murdering Parks, Butts and Wilson drove to a service station in Gray, Georgia, where they refueled Parks’s automobile and where Wilson was filmed by the service station’s security camera. Butts and Wilson then drove to Atlanta in an unsuccessful attempt to exchange Parks’s automobile for money at a “chop shop.” The pair purchased two cans of gasoline, drove to a remote location in Macon, Georgia, and set fire to Parks’s automobile.” (“Parks’ burning 1992 Acura Vigor was later discovered behind a Huddle House in east Macon.”) “They then walked to a nearby public phone, where Butts called his uncle and arranged a ride for himself and Wilson back to the Wal-Mart to retrieve Butts’s automobile.
Investigators had recorded the license plate numbers of the vehicles parked in the Wal-Mart parking lot on the night of the murder, and Butts’s automobile was among them. A shotgun loaded with an uncommon type of ammunition was found under Wilson’s bed during a search, and a witness testified that Butts had given the weapon to Wilson to hold temporarily. Two of Butts’s former jail mates testified that he had admitted to being the triggerman in the murder.
Butts was indicted in the Superior Court of Baldwin County, Georgia for malice murder, felony murder, armed robbery, hijacking a motor vehicle, possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime, and possession of a sawed-off shotgun. Butts was convicted as charged in the indictment and sentenced to death on November 21, 1998.”
During appeals, the traditional claim of ineffective counsel was made. “Butts argues that the trial judge should have recused herself simply because she had previously presided over juvenile proceedings against Butts.” “Trial counsel … made a strategic decision not to question potential jurors about their views on gangs because he intended to focus attention on Butts’s co-perpetrator as a gang member and because he thought drawing premature attention to the issue of gangs would have been counterproductive.”
There seems to be little doubt regarding the guilt of Mr. Butts and Mr. Wilson. “Although the trial judge’s report indicates that the evidence did not “foreclose all doubt” in this case, we note that the evidence supporting the jury’s finding of guilt was very strong. The fact that Butts asked the victim for a ride, even though he had driven his own automobile to the store, shows that he was involved in the motor vehicle hijacking from the beginning. The evidence also suggested that Butts carried the shotgun with him into the store as he sought out a victim. Testimony at trial showed that Butts had worked with the victim previously, suggesting that Butts intended from the beginning to murder the victim in order to ensure the victim’s silence. Several of Butts’s former jail mates testified that he had admitted being the triggerman. Evidence presented during the sentencing phase showed that Butts had a history of criminal conduct. These circumstances all might reasonably have urged the jury to impose a death sentence.”
Lawyers complained about a positive description of the victim. “Here, the incidental characterizations of the victim as a nice and charitable person and as being a person who attended services at a religious establishment were relevant to the facts of the crime. The victim offered a ride to persons pretending to be in need, and the victim was identified, in part, by the semi-formal clothing he was wearing after a religious service. Likewise, the victim’s father’s statement in response to a question by the State about how the victim’s remains were identified was an incidental outgrowth of the relevant fact that the father had, in an extraordinary and tragic turn of events, discovered his own son’s body moments after the murder.”
One novel argument against the execution is based on “evolving standards of decency of the people of Georgia.” A man set for execution next month should be resentenced because he wouldn’t get the death penalty if he were sentenced today, his lawyers argued in a court filing Wednesday. … The murder for which Butts and Wilson were sentenced had a single victim and one aggravating factor, a circumstance that increases the severity of a crime and increases the possible sentence. According to sentencing data obtained and analyzed by Butts’ lawyers, no one has been sentenced to death for a murder with one victim and one aggravating factor in over a decade.”
“According to his case, Butts and the other man were members of the Folks Nation street gang and were being required to commit a violent crime. He got in line behind Parks at a Walmart in Milledgeville, where Parks was buying cat food, and followed him to the parking lot.” “Butts contends that evidence about the Folks gang and gangs in general was irrelevant to the issues in the sentencing phase of his trial and that presentation of the evidence violated his freedom of speech and his freedom of association under the Constitution of the United States. The evidence in question suggested that Butts was involved with the Folks gang and that the gang required acts of violence for promotion within its ranks. We conclude that, because the “violent nature of that gang was relevant to the issues to be decided by the jury during the sentencing phase of [Butts’s] trial,” the contested evidence was not an invitation for the jury to punish Butts based upon his exercise of constitutional rights and, accordingly, that the evidence was admissible.”
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. UPDATE Robert Earl Butts died at 9:58 pm, May 4, 2018. His last words: “Yeah, I’ve been drinking caffeine all day.”

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Keith Leroy Tharpe, GDC ID: 0000173325, is currently scheduled to be executed on September 26, 2017 at 7:00 p.m. for the 1990 murder of his sister-in-law Jaquelin Freeman. There is little doubt regarding his guilt. The only controversy involves some statements by a juror. This is the short version of the story. If you want more details, see below. .
Murderpedia has the story of the slaying.”Tharpe’s wife, Migrisus Tharpe, left him on August 28, 1990 and moved in with her mother. Following various threats of violence made by the defendant to and about his wife and her family, a peace warrant was taken out against him, and the defendant was ordered not to have any contact with his wife or her family. Notwithstanding this order, Tharpe called his wife on September 24, 1990 and argued with her, saying if she wanted to “play dirty,” he would show her “what dirty was.” .
On the morning of the 25th, his wife and her sister-in-law met Tharpe as they drove to work. He used his vehicle to block theirs and force them to stop. He got out of his vehicle, armed with a shotgun and apparently under the influence of drugs, and ordered them out of their vehicle. After telling the sister-in-law he was going to “f— you up,” he took her to the rear of his vehicle, where he shot her. He rolled her into a ditch, reloaded, and shot her again, killing her. Tharpe then drove away with his wife. After unsuccessfully trying to rent a motel room, Tharpe parked by the side of the road and raped his wife. Afterward, he drove to Macon, where his wife was to obtain money from her credit union. Instead she called the police.” .
At the trial, Mr. Tharpe was found guilty, and sentenced to death. “The jury found the following statutory aggravating circumstances: 1. The offense of murder was committed while the offender was engaged in the commission of another capital felony, to wit: kidnapping with bodily injury of Jaquelin Freeman. 2. The offense of murder was committed while the offender was engaged in the commission of another capital felony, to wit: kidnapping with bodily injury of Migrisus Tharpe. 3. The offense of murder was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible, or inhuman in that it involved an aggravated battery to the victim.” .
Eight years after the trial, one of the jurors was interviewed. He later claimed he was intoxicated during this interview. The juror, Barney Gattie, is now deceased. Here is the story. .
“Mr. Gattie expressed his feelings about the case in general. He stated that there are two kinds of black people in the world — “regular black folks” and “niggers.” Mr. Gattie noted that he understood that some people do not like the word “nigger” but that is just what they are, and he “tells it like he sees it.” According to Mr. Gattie, if the victim in Mr. Tharpe’s case had just been one of the niggers, he would not have cared about her death. But as it was, the victim was a woman from what Mr. Gattie considered to be one of the “good black families” in Gray [a city in Jones County]. He explained that her husband was an EMT. Mr. Gattie stated that that sort of thing really made a difference to him when he was deciding whether to vote for a death sentence. … But as soon as prosecutors saw Gattie’s sworn statement, they rushed to his home and got him to sign a counter-affidavit two days after he signed the first one. The new affidavit sought to nullify what he told Tharpe’s investigators. Gattie, who now swore he wasn’t a bigot, claimed he had been drinking beer and whiskey when he spoke to the defense, and didn’t pay much attention when the affidavit was read to him. He said many of his statements “were taken out of context and simply not accurate.” He signed the defense affidavit because he “just wanted to get rid of them.”” .
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the pictures in September 1937. Many were located in Williams County, North Dakota. UPDATE Mr. Tharpe has requested his Last Meal. “Tharpe requested a last meal of three spicy chicken breasts, roast beef sandwich with sauce, fish sandwich, tater logs, onion rings, apple pie, and a vanilla milkshake.” UPDATE SCOTUS stays execution of Georgia death row inmate amid claims of racial bias. UPDATE SCOTUS issued a ruling on the case January 8, 2018, with a dissent from Justice Clarence Thomas. UPDATE Keith Tharpe died of natural causes January 26, 2020.

This chamblee54 feature discusses various methods used to put condemned criminals to death. This report gets a bit gross at times. If you want to skip over the text, you will be excused. Chamblee54 has written about lethal injection problems one, two, three, four, five, six, seven times. In 2007, the New York Times published The Needle and the Damage Done, which discusses many of these issues in great detail. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
One of the odder parts of tonight’s scheduled execution is the request of J.W. Ledford to be shot, instead of poisoned. Al Jazeera is one of many to report the story. JW Ledford Jr lawyers want firing squad, not injection “J.W. Ledford, 45, suffers from chronic nerve pain that has been treated with increasing doses of the prescription drug gabapentin for more than a decade, his lawyers said in a federal case filed on Thursday. They cited experts who said long-term exposure to gabapentin alters brain chemistry, making pentobarbital unreliable to render him unconscious and devoid of sensation or feeling. “Accordingly, there is a substantial risk that Mr Ledford will be aware and in agony as the pentobarbital attacks his respiratory system, depriving his brain, heart, and lungs of oxygen as he drowns in his own saliva,” the legal case said. That would violate the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment in the Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution, Ledford’s lawyers argued.”
Is the firing squad more humane than lethal injection? One is certainly messier than the other. The appearance to the observer is important. People want executions to be neat and tidy, with the executee in minimal pain. This is one reason for chemical agent number two in the three drug lethal cocktail. A paralytic is used, so that people won’t see the soon-to-be-deceased thrashing about as the heart is chemically shut down.
The firing squad is fast. Ammunition does not need to be purchased from a compounding pharmacy. Any pain will be over very quickly. In his book “In his book ‘Elephants on Acid: And Other Bizarre Experiments’, Alex Boese states that in the 1938 execution of John Deering, the prison physician monitoring the inmate’s heartbeat reported that the time between the shots and complete cessation of rhythm was a mere 15 seconds.” The idea is for the marksmen to shoot the prisoner in the heart.
Hanging is another time honored method of execution. If done properly, it is very efficient. Of course this is the government at work, so things do not always go smoothly. Hanging has unfortunate visuals, and is associated with lynching. It is not well thought of today.
“The modern method of judicial hanging is called the long drop. … In the long drop, those planning the execution calculate the drop distance required to break the subject’s neck based on his or her weight, height and build. They typically aim to get the body moving quickly enough after the trap door opens to produce between 1,000 and 1,250 foot-pounds of torque on the neck when the noose jerks tight. This distance can be anywhere from 5 to 9 feet. With the knot of the noose placed at the left side of the subject’s neck, under the jaw, the jolt to the neck at the end of the drop is enough to break or dislocate a neck bone called the axis, which in turn should sever the spinal cord.”
“Unfortunately, history shows that hanging is relatively easy to botch, particularly if the executioners make a mistake in their calculations. A rope that is too long can result in decapitation, whilst one that is too short can cut off breathing and blood flow through the carotid arteries in the neck. In these circumstances loss of consciousness is not always as quick, and the condemned can end up struggling for nearly 30 minutes.”
Hanging is still used in Iran. In Iran, prisoners are usually pulled up by their necks with the use of cranes. “It takes them many minutes to die, it’s a way of torturing them along with the execution,” Amiry-Moghaddam said. “Two years ago, a man had survived 14 minutes of hanging before dying. So hanging is not intended as the standard way of momentary pain. It’s not that they just die, it is a slow strangulation.” Many death penalty advocates approve of the added suffering.
The twentieth century gave us two modern methods of offing the condemned, the gas chamber, and the electric chair. “Lethal gas takes too long; the 1992 lethal-gas execution of Donald Harding in Arizona was so long — 11 minutes — and so grotesque that the attorney general threw up and the warden threatened to quit if he were required to execute someone by gas again. The electric chair often results in horrible odors and burns; in Florida, in the 1990s, at least two inmates heads’ caught fire, and the chair routinely left the body so thoroughly cooked that officials had to let the corpse cool before it could be removed.”
“First used to execute axe-murderer William Kemmler in 1890, a high voltage alternating current is applied to the body of the criminal, typically starting at 2,000 volts and 5 amps with the voltage varying periodically. This causes instant contraction and rigidity of the muscles, leading to a cessation of heart and lung activity.
The practice figured prominently in a dispute between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse regarding the relative merits of direct vs. alternating current. Edison sought to prove that the latter was too dangerous and so decided to equip the new Electric Chair at America’s ‘Sing Sing’ prison with one of the his competitor’s AC generators. Unfortunately the inexperienced executioners drastically underestimated the amount of electricity required to effectively kill Kemmler. At first they only succeeded in burning him for 17 seconds, at the end of which he was still twitching. It took a second jolt for a further 70 seconds before he was finally pronounced dead. Westinghouse was later heard to comment, “they could have done better with an axe”.”
The Guillotine was popular in France for many years. At first glance, it would seem to be efficient, though messy. Closer examination reveals some problems. “Often the blade didn’t do its job and the victim was only injured. He would then either bleed to death or the blade would have to be cranked up and dropped again. … But even when the blade was quick and efficient, many witnesses said the victim’s head didn’t die instantly. Reports of grimacing, facial twitches, blinking eyes, mouth movements, and even speech from the severed head are numerous.” (A commenter to the linked post disputes this. Rumors that Robespierre was executed face up are probably false.)
“In 1905, Dr. Beaurieux reported on his close examination of Henri Languille’s guillotine execution. While he watched, the blade did its thing and Languille’s head dropped into the basket. Beaurieux had luck on his side when the head landed on its severed neck in an upright position. This allowed him to observe Languille’s face without having to touch the head or set it up right.
“The eyelids and lips of the guillotined man worked in irregularly rhythmic contractions for about five or six seconds” “I called in a strong, sharp voice: “Languille!” I saw the eyelids slowly lift up, without any spasmodic contractions……but with an even movement, quite distinct and normal, such as happens in everyday life, with people awakened or torn from their thoughts.” “Next Languille’s eyes very definitely fixed themselves on mine and the pupils focused themselves.”