-  Rick Halperin News

NORTH CAROLINA   - David Junior Ward executed for 1991 slaying

A man convicted of murdering a Pitt County storekeeper was executed Friday morning, hours after the governor rejected pleas to commute the sentence.

 David Junior Ward, 39, died by injection at 2:17 a.m.

 Ward was sentenced to death for his role in the ambush and shooting death of Dorothy Mae Smith on April 3, 1991.

 The U.S. Supreme Court had rejected Ward's appeals twice in the past 2 weeks, and Gov. Mike Easley denied clemency at around 10 p.m. Thursday.

 Ward visited with his mother, brother and daughter for more than 4 hours Thursday afternoon, but they did not stay to watch the execution. Meanwhile, anti-death penalty advocates rallied outside Central Prison in protest.

 Last week, Easley commuted the death sentence for Robert Bacon Jr. to life in prison. Bacon's lawyers had argued that racism played a part in the punishment of their client, who was sentenced to death while a white co-defendant received a life sentence.

 At a clemency hearing Monday for Ward, defense lawyer Marvin Sparrow hoped for similar results. He tried to convince Easley that the death sentence was unfair because Ward's co-defendant, sentenced to life in prison, was more responsible for the crime.

 But prosecutors said Ward received a proper sentence from the jury and that his lawyers were engaged in last-ditch attempts to derail a just punishment.

 2 state lawmakers also asked Attorney General Roy Cooper for a 30-day delay in the execution, but their plea Wednesday was rejected.

 "I think a lot of people are disturbed by the apparent uneven application of the death penalty," Sparrow said. "I don't attribute it to flat-out opposition, but people are disturbed because it appears to be random."

 In a statement issued late Thursday evening, Easley said he saw "no compelling reasons" to commute the death sentence recommended by a jury.

 Ward becomes the 4th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in North Carolina and the 20th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1984.

 Ward becomes the 51st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 734th overall since America resumed executions on January 17, 1977.