AUGUST 16, 2002:

GEORGIA State executes convicted killer Wallace Fugate

 Wallace M. Fugate III, convicted of killing his wife in front of their 15-year-old son in 1991, was executed Friday after 2 narrow escapes from the death chamber.

 Fugate 52, was pronounced dead at 9:46 p.m., the 7th man put to death since Georgia adopted lethal injection as its method of execution.

 Before a lethal sequence of three chemicals was pumped into his body, Fugate said very little beyond thanking his attorneys, who won last-minute stays of execution in June and then again this week. He then said goodbyes to his slain wife and dead son.

 His last words were: "I feel right with God. Nothing to worry about."

 After being administered the sedative sodium pentothal, followed by Pavulon to paralyze his lungs, and potassium chloride to stop his heart, Fugate nodded to his attorney and a paralegal, smiled weakly, then yawned, rolled his head to the right and died.

 His attorney, Stephen Bright, said that before the execution Fugate had met with his parents for the 2nd time in 3 days, and spoke warmly of his wife, Pattie, and son, Mark, who was slain 5 years after his mother in an unrelated case.

 A federal judge refused Fugate's claim Tuesday that lethal injection is unconstitutionally cruel because it may be possible for prisoners to feel intense pain if the sedative wears off before death.

 Fugate fatally shot his wife during a struggle outside the family home in Putnam County, according to court testimony. But he insisted the gun fired accidently after he took it out to a van and they scuffled inside.

 Mark Fugate gave 2 accounts of his mother's death. He told police his view was blocked and that he could not tell whether Fugate grabbed his mother by the hair and fired the gun in her face.

 At the trial, he testified that he saw his father tilt his mother's head back, pull the trigger and then look at him and smile.

 The record of the trial and appeals shows Fugate's appointed trial lawyers did not challenge the son's testimony, nor did they hire an investigator to check the account. The lawyers also appeared to be unfamiliar with any significant Supreme Court decisions concerning the death penalty.

But a 3-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the death sentence last summer, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal in May.

 The state Supreme Court denied his appeal on Wednesday and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to grant a stay Friday night.

 Fugate becomes the 3rd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Georgia and the 30th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1983. One woman and 119 men remain on death row. Fugate also becomes the 43rd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 792nd overall since America resumed executions on January 17, 1977.