USA; TEXAS, ESEGUITA 28.A CONDANNA QUEST'ANNO

 WASHINGTON, 26 SET - Nel carcere di Huntsville, in Texas, e' stata eseguita la 28.a condanna capitale di quest'anno nello Stato e la 283.a da quando le esecuzioni sono riprese, dopo una moratoria, nel 1982.

A subire l'iniezione letale, e' stato Calvin King, 48 anni, che nel 1994, mentre era in liberta' vigilata, uccise, insieme a un complice, uno spacciatore di droga che aveva con se' molto denaro, Billy Wayne Ezell.

Teatro del delitto, compiuto il 26 febbraio 1994, fu un motel di Beaumont, dove l'Ezell spacciava e dove King e il suo complice l'accoltellarono.

Poco prima dell'iniezione letale, King, gia' legato sul lettino, ha detto qualche parola, rivolgendosi a Dio e agli astanti.

La sua esecuzione segue di sole 24 ore quella di un altro detenuto del carcere di Huntsville.

Inmate executed for drug murder

State's 28th lethal injection of yearIn Huntsville, a Dallas man with at least 4 other felony convictions was executed Wednesday evening for a robbery-slaying in Beaumont during a drug deal while he was on parole. 

Calvin Eugene King, 48, was the 28th Texas inmate to receive lethal injection this year and the 2nd in as many days. In a brief final statement, King muttered, "I want to say, God forgives as I forgive, and God is the greatest. Thank you." As the drugs began flowing into his arms, he gurgled and then gasped twice. 

He was pronounced dead 11 minutes later, at 6:20 p.m. A Jefferson County jury deliberated only 30 minutes before deciding King was guilty and deliberated just an hour before deciding he should go to death row for the fatal stabbing of Billy Wayne Ezell, 21, more than 8 years ago. 

The U.S. Supreme Court refused Wednesday to review King's case. 2 justices, John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, favored granting a reprieve.Relatives described Ezell, from Silsbee, about 20 miles north of Beaumont, as ignorant of the ways of the city and making poor choices by choosing to sell crack cocaine in Beaumont in the days before his death. "According to one of his buddies and his mom, he was looking at this as an opportunity to make some really good money, really quickly, because he thought that would help him get back together with his estranged wife," said Ramon Rodriguez, the Jefferson County assistant district attorney who prosecuted King. "He was just a country boy in over his head. "People at the hotel said he was flashing cash. It was not surprising somebody took advantage of him." 

Evidence showed that somebody was King, a landscaper who had been on parole for about five months after serving only 4 years of a 25-year prison term for burglary in Dallas County. Court records indicated Ezell was lured to a Beaumont motel Feb. 26, 1994, where he was stabbed, beaten and robbed by King and a partner, Leonard Johnson, also of Dallas. "It was a very brutal crime," Rodriguez said this week. "We're talking dozens of stab wounds, and then being bludgeoned with a table lamp." 

The lamp cord also was wound around his neck. Johnson pleaded guilty and received a life prison term. King got a death sentence. In urging the jury to choose the death penalty, Rodriguez said he pointed out that King did not need to kill Ezell. "All they had to do was rob him," he said. Testimony showed the pair took cash from Ezell and were seen at home using an oven to dry money they had washed to remove the victim's blood. 

King earlier had multiple convictions for theft out of Dallas County in the 1980s before being released on parole or mandatory supervision at a time when Texas prisons were overcrowded and court orders required some inmates to be freed. "That's how it was back then," Rodriguez said. "That was really frustrating." 

On Tuesday, Rex Mays, who worked occasionally as a clown and had dressed as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, was executed for fatally stabbing a pair of Houston girls in 1992. At least 7 other condemned Texas prisoners have execution dates this year, including 1 next week. James Powell, 56, is set to die Tuesday for the 1990 abduction of a 10-year-old girl from Beaumont. She was driven to an area near Orange where she was raped and strangled.