Texas carried out its 10th execution of 2011, tonight in Huntsville. It was the state's 474th execution since 1983. Texas has far and away the most active execution chamber in the nation accounting for more than 37% of America's post-Furman executions.
It was the 235th execution conducted under the administration of Rick Perry. He became Governor of Texas upon the resignation of George W. Bush in December 2000. 152 men and women were executed in five years under Governor Bush's tenure.
Reuters posts, "Texas executes man for Dallas-area slayings," written by Karen Brooks.
Texas on Tuesday executed a man who was convicted for his involvement in the slayings of two people in north Texas, even though an alleged accomplice admitted to the killings.
Steven Michael Woods, 31, was convicted in the shooting and slashing of a young Dallas-area couple under a controversial Texas law that allows a defendant to be put to death for a murder someone else committed.
Woods was given a lethal injection of drugs and pronounced dead at 6:22 p.m. local time, said Michelle Lyons, a Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman.
In his last words, Woods told his mother he loved her, accused the state of committing a murder, and named his co-defendant, Marcus Rhodes, who pleaded guilty to murdering the couple and is serving a life sentence.
"You're not about to witness an execution. You are about to witness a murder. I am strapped down for something Marcus Rhodes did. I never killed nobody, ever," he said. "Justice has let me down. Somebody completely screwed this up. Well, Warden, if you're going to murder someone, go ahead and do it. Pull that trigger."
And:
The law allows a jury to find a defendant guilty of murder if they were involved in the crime, even if they did not directly commit the killing, or were involved in crimes that lead to the killing, or if they should have known the crime would happen and showed a "reckless disregard" for human life.
Woods maintains that all he did was witnesses a horrible crime, and then run for his life, but that the law he has called "barbaric" in web postings punished him for a crime he did not commit. Witnesses who said he told them he had killed the pair were lying, he has said.
To date, there have been 33 executions in the nation this year; 1,267 post-Furman executions since 1977.
According to TDCJ, six additional executions are scheduled in Texas this year.
Related posts are in the law of parties index.
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