NEW YORK, 28 AGO - Lo Stato del Texas ha messo a morte un uomo per un assassinio commesso quando aveva 17 anni.

Toronto Patterson aveva ucciso un cuginetto di tre anni durante un furto di pneumatici dall'auto di una zia.

Patterson ha ricevuto l'iniezione letale nel carcere di Huntsville. Aveva 24 anni al momento dell'esecuzione.

In extremis Patterson aveva fatto appello ala Corte Suprema chiedendo il bando delle esecuzioni per quanti come lui avevano ucciso da minorenni.

Dalla sua parte si reano schierati tre giudici della Corte, John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg e Stephen Breyer, che rappresentano l'ala progressista dei tutori della Costituzione americana.

Aveva pero' prevalso la maggioranza che aveva dato luce verde all'esecuzione.

Dall'inizio dell'anno Patterson e' stato il terzo assassino finito sul lettino dell'iniezione letale in Texas per un delitto commesso quando era minorenne. 

Dallas man convicted as 17-year-old murderer executed

Apologetic but maintaining his innocence, a former teenage drug dealer was executed Wednesday evening for killing a 3-year-old cousin at her Dallas home - 1 of 3 relatives gunned down so he could steal some fancy car wheels.

 "I am sorry for the pain, sorry for what I caused my friends, family and loved ones," Toronto Patterson, now 24, said while strapped to the death chamber gurney.

 "I feel a great deal of responsibility and guilt for what happened.

 "I should be punished for the crime, but I do not think I should die for a crime I did not commit."

 Patterson said that while he was sorry, nothing could bring back the victims and he prayed his death would bring peace and unite his family.

 "I ask for your forgiveness and that you will all forgive me," he said. "I invite you all to my funeral. We are still family."

 As the drugs began taking effect, Patterson exhaled and then gasped. 9 minutes later at 6:20 p.m. CDT, he was pronounced dead.

 Patterson was 17 when he was arrested for the fatal shootings of Ollie Brown, 3; her sister, Jennifer, 6; and their mother, Kimberly Brewer, 25.

 His age at the time of the slayings renewed criticism of capital punishment for teenagers from death penalty opponents.

 2 other condemned killers were executed in Texas - one 3 weeks ago and another in May - for crimes committed when they were 17. While execution critics referred to them as juveniles, under the law in Texas and at least 21 other states they were adults.

 "I'm scared, but being here, seeing so many other people with dates dying, and how everything gets in motion, I pretty much seen how things are going to go. I guess you'd say - something like a routine," Patterson said in an interview last week on death row, where he is known as "Tonto."

 The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles earlier this week refused requests for a reprieve or for clemency.

 Patterson's attorneys appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, contending his punishment, because of his age at the time of the crime, would be unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment. About 2 hours before his scheduled execution time, the high court, in a 6-3 vote, rejected his appeal.

 "Such executions not only violate international norms, they also offend human decency," said Steven Hawkins, executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. "The mind of a juvenile offender is by definition less developed than the mind of an adult."

 Not so, said George West, one of the Dallas County district attorneys who prosecuted Patterson.

 "The stated age of an individual is one thing, their maturity and experience is another," West said. "And this guy wasn't a dummy."

 Evidence showed Patterson went to the home of his great-aunt on June 6, 1995, so he could steal the chrome wheels from a BMW stored there. Similar wheels on his own car had been stolen.

 Armed with a .38-caliber pistol, prosecutors said he shot Brewer, his cousin and his great-aunt's daughter, as she was seated in a recliner. Then he moved on to the children, shooting the 6-year-old as she watched cartoons on television, and the 3-year-old as she cowered in a corner of the room, her hands over her ears.

 "It was extremely sad," West said this week. "The only person who could stop him physically was Kimberly, the woman... But what does he do? He decides: 'I've got to eliminate eyewitnesses because that means I could try to increase my odds of not getting caught. So I eliminate the two kids who know me.'

 "No question about thought processes there," West added. "There was no need to kill the kids otherwise."

 Authorities said he then took 3 rims from the car but was unable to remove the fourth. His fingerprints were found on the rims, left at his girlfriend's house. His bloody clothing was traced to the victims. He told his girlfriend he had robbed and shot someone.

 He was arrested the following day. Police saw him in news footage in the crowd outside his cousins' house as the bodies were being removed. He was not grieving, prosecutors recalled.

 In testimony at his trial and in interviews, he blamed the deaths on unnamed "Jamaicans."

 "I wasn't there when the shootings occurred," he said last week.

 "It was a hokey story," said Jason January, another of the prosecutors in Patterson's case. "We were very very confident we got the right man."

 Patterson becomes the 23rd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas, and the 279th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on Dec. 7, 1982. 5 condemned inmates are set to die in September.

 America has now executed 21 juvenile offenders since 1985, and 13 of them have been put to death in Texas. Patterson becomes the 46th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 795th overall since America resumed executions on January 17, 1977.