WASHINGTON, 27 MAR - Nel carcere di Huntsville, in Texas, e' stata eseguita in serata la condanna a morte di un omicida che era ammalato di schizofrenia.

James Colburn, 43 anni, e' stato messo a morte con un' iniezione letale, per avere ucciso a coltellate, dopo avere cercato di violentarla, Peggy Murphy, 55 anni, il 26 giugno 1994, nei pressi di Houston.

Colburn era, in quel momento, in liberta' vigilata.

L'esecuzione di Colburn e' stata la 301/a in Texas da quando nel 1982, lo Stato riprese ad applicare la pena capitale e la 12/a quest'anno. Se continua su questo ritmo, il Texas e' avviato a battere il suo macabro record di 40 esecuzioni in un anno, stabilito nel 2000.

Prima di subire l'iniezione letale, Colburn, che era reo confesso, ha avuto parole di pentimento. I suoi legali hanno provato, fino all'ultimo, a fare valere il fatto che la sua malattia rendeva ingiusta e crudele l'esecuzione.

Ma ne' i giudici della Corte Suprema dell'Unione, che pure avevano sospeso nel novembre scorso l'esecuzione per approfondimenti, ne' quelli del Texas hanno accettato la tesi della difesa. 

TEXAS -Mentally ill condemned man executed Wednesday

In Huntsville, a mentally ill murderer spared from execution 5 months ago by a last-minute reprieve was executed Wednesday for fatally stabbing a woman during an attempted rape.

"None of this should have happened and now that I'm dying there is nothing left to worry about," James Colburn said in a brief final statement as he was strapped to the death chamber gurney. "I know it was a mistake. I have no one to blame but myself," he said.

Colburn added that it was "no big deal" about whether he knew the difference between right and wrong, which was an element of his appeal. He prayed "that everyone involved overlooks the stupidity. Everybody has problems and I won't be part of the problem any more. I can quit worrying now."

He then said he could feel the drugs in his system. "It's going to be like passing out on drugs," he said. Colburn gasped slightly and his eyes closed. He was pronounced dead at 6:21 p.m., 8 minutes after the flow of drugs began.

Colburn, 43, didn't deny killing the woman at his Conroe-area home in 1994, but his attorneys contended it would be barbaric to execute the 9th-grade dropout because he suffers from paranoid schizophrenia.

Prosecutors didn't dispute Colburn's mental illness but contended the repeat offender who was on parole when arrested for capital murder was competent and understood why he was facing lethal injection.

"The issue was whether or not that illness kept him from knowing right from wrong," said Jay Hileman, a former Montgomery County assistant district attorney who prosecuted Colburn. "It didn't, so he wasn't found to be insane.

"And the issue was whether or not his illness was to the extent that it would be a mitigating circumstance to warrant a life sentence. And the jury clearly found that too wasn't the case."

Defense lawyers argued in late appeals that an exam conducted last month by a psychologist showed Colburn to be delusional and that those results conflicted with the findings of state experts who last fall determined he was competent. Colburn's attorneys sought permission of a court to litigate the matter.

The Supreme Court last year halted executions of the mentally retarded as unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment, but the justices so far have refused such blanket protection for the mentally ill.

"The Supreme Court is going to have the face the issue eventually," James Rytting, an attorney for Colburn, said. "It's these fundamental problems with people who suffer from this disease to process information and make judgments that goes to the heart of whether they should be held responsible for the offense the state says they committed."

Colburn's lawyers and death penalty opponents thought the high court would examine the issue when a Supreme Court order stopped Colburn's scheduled execution Nov. 6 at 5:59 p.m., 1 minute before he could have been moved to the death chamber.

But without comment in January, the justices refused to review his appeal, lifted the reprieve and Montgomery County authorities rescheduled the execution. The Supreme Court denied 2 stays Wednesday night, shortly before the execution.

Colburn was convicted of choking and fatally stabbing a hitchhiker, Peggy Louise Murphy, 55, at his Conroe-area apartment just north of Houston as she resisted a rape attempt June 26, 1994.

Colburn had been in mental institutions at least twice and in and out of prisons numerous times for robbery, burglary, assault and arson.

"Lord knows now I'm willing to lay down my life and end all of this," Colburn said last year shortly before his November execution date. The punishment, he said, would be "putting an end to my worries."

He declined to speak with reporters since then.

Rytting described Colburn as shaking so much a month ago during the session with the defense psychologist he could barely hold the telephone inmates use to speak with visitors, who are separated from prisoners by glass. Colburn, in an interview last year, blamed the condition on "bad nerves," adding that he's known to his fellow death row prisoners as "Shaky."

His punishment was not the 1st for a condemned murderer with mental illness. At least 4 Texas inmates last year were executed after raising similar claims and death penalty opponents and advocates for the mentally ill continue to denounce the practice.

"Given Mr. Colburn's clearly debilitated mental state, it is morally unconscionable that Texas would proceed with this execution," said Sue Gunawardena-Vaught, director of Amnesty International USA's program to abolish the death penalty.

"The larger question we need to ask ourselves as a country is: Do we want to treat people with mental illness this way?" said Charles Ingoglia, vice president for research and services for the Alexandria, Va.-based National Mental Health Association.

Colburn becomes the 12th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas, and the 301st overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982. There are 3 more executions scheduled in April in Huntsville; Texas is currently on a pace to break its own record of 40 executions carried out in 2000.

Colburn becomes the 62nd condemned inmate to be put to death since Rick Perry became governor in 2001. 152 condemned inmates were put to death in Texas during the gubernatorial tenure of Perry's predecessor, then- governor George W. Bush.

Colburn becomes the 22nd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 842nd overall since America resumed executions on January 17, 1977. America's next scheduled execution date is April 3, when Scott Hain is due to be put to death in Oklahoma, and Brandon Hedrick is due to be put to death in Virginia.