USA
Law enforcement officials spoke out against this: man executed by lethal injection
So far, 23 of the 50 US states have abolished the death penalty (archive image). photo
© Paul_Buck/EPA/dpa
Many states in the USA have the death penalty. Now Missouri has killed a convicted murderer despite scores of people supporting a plea for clemency.
A convicted murderer has been executed in the US state of Missouri. The 52-year-old was born via… Killed by lethal injection in Bonne Terre prison, US media reported, citing the responsible authority. The man was sentenced to death for the murder of his cousin and her husband in 2006.
He had pleaded guilty to shooting his then-25-year-old cousin and her 28-year-old husband with a shotgun in their home in New Bloomfield, Missouri. They had taken him in for one night to protect him from drug dealers who wanted to collect debts from the American. The couple’s four-year-old daughter was also in the house at the time of the murder.
Showed remorse before death by lethal injection
In a petition to the US Supreme Court, his lawyers asked for a stay of the death sentence. Her client committed the crime during a drug-induced psychosis and was “fully rehabilitated” by his years on death row. Supporters of a petition for clemency included Catholic bishops from Missouri and 70 correctional officers from the prison where the 52-year-old perpetrator had been imprisoned for 17 years. Media reported that the man showed remorse before his death.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, five people were executed in the United States this year, up from 25 last year. More than 2,300 death row criminals are currently on death row, some of them for decades. In January, a person sentenced to death was killed for the first time using a new nitrogen method.
State executions
Nitrogen instead of guillotine, death for “wrong” sex – eleven facts about the death penalty
During the procedure, a person is supplied with nitrogen through a face mask – the result is death from lack of oxygen. Human rights experts had sounded the alarm. To date, 23 of the 50 states have abolished the death penalty.