l****z
发帖数: 29846 | 1 【 以下文字转载自 USANews 讨论区 】
发信人: lczlcz (lcz), 信区: USANews
标 题: 又一个恶棍终于伏法
发信站: BBS 未名空间站 (Thu Sep 11 01:53:00 2014, 美东)
Texas executes man who killed ex-wife, her brother
September 10, 2014 - 9:07 PM
By MICHAEL GRACZYK, Associated Press
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A man convicted of gunning down his former common-
law wife and her brother more than two decades ago in Houston was put to
death by lethal injection Wednesday evening.
Willie Trottie's execution was carried out about 90 minutes after the U.S.
Supreme Court rejected his last-day appeals. He had contended he had poor
legal help at his trial and questioned the potency of the execution drug.
Trottie repeatedly expressed love to witnesses — both people he selected
and relatives of his victims, Barbara and Titus Canada — and several times
asked for forgiveness as he was about to be executed.
"I love you all," he said. "I'm going home, going to be with the Lord. ...
Find it in your hearts to forgive me. I'm sorry."
As the lethal dose of the powerful sedative pentobarbital took effect, he
closed his eyes and breathed quietly. After about eight breaths, he opened
his mouth to exhale, then closed it. There was no further movement.
Trottie, 45, was pronounced dead at 6:35 p.m. CDT — 22 minutes after the
injection began.
His was the eighth lethal injection this year in Texas, and the first in the
nation's most active death penalty state since recent executions went awry
in Oklahoma and Arizona. Unlike those states, where a drug combination is
used for capital punishment, Texas uses a single lethal dose of
pentobarbital.
He became the second death row inmate executed in the U.S. on Wednesday.
Earl Ringo Jr. received a lethal injection just after midnight in Missouri
for a 1998 robbery and double murder.
After Trottie's execution, relatives of his victims released a statement
saying they were relieved justice was "finally served all these years later."
"It's time for our family to end this chapter and be able to move on," the
statement read.
Trottie had acknowledged shooting Barbara Canada, 24, and her brother, Titus
Canada, 28, at their parents' home in Houston. But Trottie said the May
1993 shootings were accidental and in self-defense, and not worthy of a
death sentence.
Prosecutors said he had threatened to kill Canada, who had a protective
order against him, if she didn't return to him. They said he carried out
that threat when barging into the house and opening fire.
Trottie's attorneys had argued to the Supreme Court that lawyers at his 1993
trial were deficient for not addressing his self-defense theory and for
failing to produce sufficient testimony about Trottie's abusive childhood
with an alcoholic mother.
State attorneys scoffed at the argument, saying Trottie's self-defense claim
was absurd and had been rejected in earlier appeals.
Trottie's attorneys also contended the dose of pentobarbital for his lethal
injection was past its effectiveness date and could subject him to
unconstitutional "tortuous" pain.
The state responded that the drug doesn't expire until the end of the month
and that tests showed proper potency. They argued the appeal seeking details
of the drug was merely another attempt to force prison officials to
disclose the compounding pharmacy that provides the execution drugs,
something the courts repeatedly have refused to order.
Investigators have said that Trottie called his ex-wife May 3, 1993, and
renewed an earlier death threat. They said he then showed up at her parents'
house and opened fire with a semi-automatic pistol.
Titus Canada also had a gun and wounded Trottie, who then cornered his ex-
wife in a bedroom and shot her 11 times before returning to the wounded
brother and shooting him twice in the back of the head, according to
investigators.
Trottie drove himself to a hospital, where police arrested him. |
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