|
| Pat Hartwell places signs as she joins demonstrators to protesting the execution of Kimberly McCarthy on Wednesday, June 26, 2013 outside the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Huntsville Unit, where the death chamber is located, in Huntsville, Texas. If McCarthy is put to death as planned, she would become the 500th person executed in Texas since the state resumed carrying out the death penalty in 1982. The 52-year-old also would be the first woman executed in the U.S. since 2010. |
HUNTSVILLE, Texas
(AP) -- Texas marked a solemn moment in criminal justice Wednesday
evening, executing its 500th inmate since it resumed carrying out
capital punishment in 1982.
Kimberly McCarthy,
who was put to death for the murder of her 71-year-old neighbor, was
also the first woman executed in the U.S. in nearly three years.
McCarthy,
52, was executed for the 1997 robbery, beating and fatal stabbing of
retired college psychology professor Dorothy Booth. Booth had agreed to
give McCarthy a cup of sugar before she was attacked with a butcher
knife and candelabra at her home in Lancaster, about 15 miles south of
Dallas. Authorities say McCarthy cut off Booth's finger to remove her
wedding ring.
It was among three slayings linked to McCarthy, a former nursing home therapist who became addicted to crack cocaine.
She
was pronounced dead at 6:37 p.m. CDT, 20 minutes after Texas prison
officials began administering a single lethal dose of pentobarbital.
In
her final statement, McCarthy did not mention her status as the 500th
inmate to be executed or acknowledge Booth or her family.
"This
is not a loss. This is a win. You know where I'm going. I'm going home
to be with Jesus. Keep the faith. I love you all," she said, while
looking toward her witnesses - her attorney, her spiritual adviser and
her ex-husband, New Black Panther Party founder Aaron Michaels.
As
the drug started to take effect, McCarthy said, "God is great," before
closing her eyes. She took hard, raspy, loud breaths for several seconds
before becoming quiet. Then, her chest moved up and down for another
minute before she stopped breathing.
Friends
and family of Booth told reporters after the execution that they were
not conscious that Texas had carried out its 500th execution since 1982.
They said their only focus was on Booth's brutal murder.
Five-hundred
is "just a number. It doesn't really mean very much," said Randall
Browning, who was Booth's godson. "'We're just thinking about the
justice that was promised to us by the state of Texas."
Donna
Aldred, Booth's daughter, reading a statement to reporters, said that
her mother "was an incredible person who was taken before her time."
Texas
has carried out nearly 40 percent of the more than 1,300 executions in
the U.S. since the Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to resume in
1976. The state's standing stems from its size as the nation's
second-most populous state as well as its tradition of tough justice for
killers.
Texas prison officials said that for
them, it was just another execution. "We simply carried out the court's
order," said Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason
Clark.
With increased debate in recent years
over wrongful convictions, some states have halted the practice
entirely. However, 32 states have the death penalty on the books. Though
Texas still carries out executions, lawmakers have provided more
sentencing options for juries and courts have narrowed the cases for
which death can be sought.
In a statement,
Maurie Levin, McCarthy's attorney, said "500 is 500 too many. I look
forward to the day when we recognize that this pointless and barbaric
practice, imposed almost exclusively on those who are poor and
disproportionately on people of color, has no place in a civilized
society."
Outside the prison, about 40
protesters gathered, carrying signs saying "Death Penalty: Racist and
Anti-Poor," "Stop All Executions Now" and "Stop Killing to Stop
Killings." As the hour for the execution approached, protesters began
chanting and sang the old Negro spiritual "Wade in the Water."
In
recent years, Texas executions have generally drawn fewer than 10
protesters. A handful of counter-demonstrators who support the death
penalty gathered in another area outside the prison Wednesday.
Executions
of women are infrequent. McCarthy was the 13th woman put to death in
the U.S. and the fourth in Texas, the nation's busiest death penalty
state, since the Supreme Court in 1976 allowed capital punishment to
resume. In that same period, more than 1,300 male inmates have been
executed nationwide, 496 of them in Texas. Virginia is a distant second,
nearly 400 executions behind.
Levin, had
asked the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to halt the punishment,
arguing black jurors were improperly excluded from McCarthy's trial by
Dallas County prosecutors. McCarthy is black; her victim white. All but
one of her 12 jurors were white. The court denied McCarthy's appeals,
ruling her claims should have been raised previously.
Prosecutors
said McCarthy stole Booth's Mercedes and drove to Dallas, pawned the
woman's wedding ring she removed from the severed finger for $200 and
went to a crack house to buy cocaine. Evidence also showed she used
Booth's credit cards at a liquor store.
McCarthy blamed the crime on two drug dealers, but there was no evidence either existed.
Her ex-husband, Michaels, testified on her behalf. They had separated before Booth's slaying.
DNA
evidence also tied McCarthy to the December 1988 slayings of
81-year-old Maggie Harding and 85-year-old Jettie Lucas. Harding was
stabbed and beaten with a meat tenderizer, while Lucas was beaten with
both sides of a claw hammer and stabbed.
McCarthy, who denied any involvement in the attacks, was indicted but not tried for those slayings.
In January, McCarthy was just hours away from being put to death when a Dallas judge delayed her execution.
McCarthy
was the eighth Texas prisoner executed this year. She was among 10
women on death row in Texas, but the only one with an execution date.
Seven male Texas prisoners have executions scheduled in the coming
months.
