September 2021 | Page 3 of 17

Willie Trottie Texas Execution

Willie Trottie was executed by the State of Texas for a double murder. According to court documents Willie Trottie would go over to his estranged girlfriends home and shoot and kill her and her brother. Willie Trottie would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Willie Trottie would be executed by lethal injection on September 10 2014

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Willie Tyrone Trottie, condemned for the murder of his estranged wife and her brother, went to his death in Texas’ execution chamber Wednesday offering apologies to his victims’ family.

As relatives of Barbara Canada and Titus Canada embraced and sobbed, Trottie smiled faintly, called their names and said, “I hope this brings you some closure. Stay strong. I am going home to be with the Lord.

“Find it in your hearts to forgive me. I’m sorry,” he continued. “Jesus take me home.”

Willie Trottie, 45, was declared dead at 6:35 p.m. – 30 minutes after the lethal injection of pentobarbital began flowing.

Later, relatives of the victims issued a statement saying they were “glad to see justice finally served all these years later. It is time for our family to end this chapter and move on.”

Trottie’s case gained national attention earlier this year when he shared his views concerning his crime, death row and capital punishment with the online publication, gawker.com. In his letter, Trottie denounced his pending execution as a “murdercution.”

The former Houston security guard’s death sentence grew out a romantic relationship that ended on May 3, 1993 in a bloody shootout at the Canada family home. Trottie insisted that he had fired his 9 mm semi-automatic “in the heat of passion,” only after he had been wounded by shots fired by his estranged lover’s brother. Trottie said he had gone to the residence to borrow a car.

Accounts of the fatal night included in court documents, though, indicate Trottie’s appearance at the Canada home came after repeated threats that he would murder Barbara Canada if she failed to return to him. “Bitch, I told you I was going to kill you,” he said as he pumped 11 bullets into the 24-year-old woman’s body. Titus Canada, 29, was shot twice in the head, and the pair’s mother and sister also were wounded.

Trial witnesses testified that Trottie frequently telephoned his former lover at home and work and that, on one occasion, he bumped her car with his vehicle at highway speeds.

In response to the threats and harassment, Barbara Canada obtained a restraining order barring further contact.

In state and federal appeals filed days before the scheduled execution, Trottie’s lawyers argued that Canada ‑ mother of Trottie’s young son ‑ continued their intimate relationship despite the court order. Arguing that Trottie had suffered from ineffective representation, they said that jurors in their client’s first trial never heard such testimony ‑ testimony that might have lent credence to his claims of passion and self-defense.

Sixteen years passed, they told appeals courts, before prosecutors told Trottie’s legal team that a trial witness had privately conceded that Canada “probably had messed with (Trottie’s) mind.”

According to court documents, Trottie and Canada began dating in 1989, later living together in a common-law marriage. They separated three years later.

In an 11th-hour filing Tuesday with the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Trottie’s lawyers questioned whether state prison officials were truthful when they asserted pentobarbital to be used in the execution would remain potent and pure. Lawyers asked the court to issue a stay and schedule oral arguments concerning the compounding pharmacy-produced drug.

https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Houston-man-executed-in-deaths-of-estranged-5746816.php

Earl Ringo Missouri Execution

Earl Ringo was executed by the State of Missouri for a double murder committed during a robbery. According to court documents Earl Ringo would shoot and kill two people during a robbery at a restaurant in 1998. Earl Ringo would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Earl Ringo would be executed on September 10 2014

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A Missouri inmate was put to death early Wednesday for killing two people during a restaurant robbery in 1998, the eighth execution in the state this year and the 10th since November.

Earl Ringo Jr. and an accomplice killed delivery driver Dennis Poyser and manager trainee JoAnna Baysinger at a Ruby Tuesday in Columbia in the early hours of July 4, 1998. Poyser and Baysinger were shot to death at point-blank range.Ringo’s last words were a quote from the Quran that expresses belief and wishes for after death. He wiggled his feet as the process began, breathed deeply a few times, then closed his eyes, all in a matter of seconds. The Department of Corrections said Ringo was executed by lethal injection and pronounced dead at 12:31 a.m.

Courts and Gov. Jay Nixon had refused to halt the execution over concerns raised by Ringo’s attorneys, who, among other things, questioned Missouri’s use of a pre-execution sedative, midazolam. Attorneys argued that the drug could dull Ringo’s senses and leave him unable to express any pain or suffering during the process.

Ringo declined to take any sedative, including midazolam, the Corrections Department said.

Midazolam has come under scrutiny after it was used in problematic executions earlier this year in Ohio, Oklahoma and Arizona. In each case, witnesses said the inmates gasped after their executions began and continued to labor for air before being pronounced dead.

A clemency petition to Nixon had also cited concerns about the fact that Ringo was convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white jury.

On July 3, 1998, Earl Ringo shared with Quentin Jones his plan to rob the Ruby Tuesday where he once worked. Jones agreed to join him.

Before sunrise the next day, the two hid behind a grease pit in the back of the restaurant. Poyser and Baysinger arrived and entered the restaurant. Ringo followed them and shot Poyser, 45, killing him instantly.

He ordered Baysinger, 22, to open a safe. She pulled out $1,400 US and gave it to him.

Ringo gave the gun to Jones, who stood with the weapon pointed at Baysinger’s head for a minute and a half before pulling the trigger.

Interviews with restaurant workers and former workers led police to Ringo, according to Kevin Crane, who was the Boone County prosecutor at the time. Detectives found a blue ski mask, gun receipt, bulletproof vest and other evidence at the home of Ringo’s mother.

Earl Ringo admitted to the robbery but claimed the shootings were in self-defence. He was convicted in 1999 and sentenced to death.

Jama Brown, who was married to Poyser for 24 years, asked that people remember the victims.

“I can only tell you there is not a day that goes by that I don’t think of him or wonder what my life would be like today, not only for myself, but for my kids,” she said.

Jones, of Louisville, Kentucky, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison, but he was spared the death penalty when he agreed to testify against Earl Ringo.

Ringo’s lawyers had asked a federal appeals court to postpone the execution until a hearing over Missouri’s use of midazolam. Attorney Richard Sindel claimed that Missouri’s use of midazolam essentially violates its own protocol, which provides for pentobarbital as the lone execution drug.

St. Louis Public Radio reported last week that Missouri administered midazolam to all nine inmates put to death since November. Corrections department spokesman David Owen said midazolam “is used to relieve the offender’s level of anxiety” and is not part of the actual execution process.

The execution was one of two scheduled for Wednesday in the U.S.

Texas was scheduled to execute Willie Trottie later in the day for killing his common-law wife and her brother in 1993. Trottie’s execution would be Texas’ eighth this year.

Florida has performed seven executions in 2014, and all other states have a combined six.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/earl-ringo-jr-executed-in-missouri-after-losing-appeal-over-midazolam-1.2761552

Michael Worthington Missouri Execution

Michael Worthington was executed by the State of Missouri for the sexual assault and murder of a woman in 1995. According to court documents Michael Worthington would go over to the victims home where he would sexually assault and murder Melinda Griffin. Michael Worthington would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Michael Worthington would be executed by lethal injection on August 5, 2014

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A Missouri inmate was put to death early on Wednesday for raping and killing a neighbor in 1995 – the first lethal injection in the US since an Arizona execution went wrong in July.

The Missouri corrections department said Michael Worthington was pronounced dead shortly after midnight. He was the seventh Missouri inmate executed in 2014 and had been sentenced to death for the 1995 attack on Melinda “Mindy” Griffin during a burglary of her home.

The US supreme court and Missouri’s governor on Tuesday declined to block the execution. Worthington’s attorneys had cited the Arizona execution and two others that were botched in Ohio and Oklahoma, along with the secrecy surrounding the lethal injection drugs used in Missouri.

Worthington, 43, said in a telephone interview with the Associated Press that he had accepted his fate. “I figure I’ll wake up in a better place tomorrow,” Worthington said on Tuesday. “I’m just accepting of whatever’s going to happen because I have no choice. The courts don’t seem to care about what’s right or wrong any more.”

Three problematic executions in recent months have renewed the debate over lethal injection. In Arizona the inmate gasped more than 600 times and took nearly two hours to die. In April an Oklahoma inmate died of an apparent heart attack 43 minutes after his execution began. In January an Ohio inmate snorted and gasped for 26 minutes before being declared dead.

Most lethal injections take effect in a fraction of that time, often within 10 or 15 minutes.

Arizona, Oklahoma and Ohio all use midazolam, a drug more commonly given to help patients relax before surgery. In executions it is one of two or three drugs used in combination.

Texas and Missouri instead administer a single large dose of pentobarbital, often used to treat convulsions and seizures and to euthanize animals.

States have found it harder to obtain lethal injection drugs after European drug companies objected to the use of their products in executions. Missouri and Texas have turned to compounding pharmacies to make versions of pentobarbital. Like most states they refuse to name their drug suppliers, creating a shroud of secrecy that has prompted lawsuits.

On Tuesday Griffin’s 76-year-old parents anticipated witnessing Worthington die. “It’s been 19 years and I feel like there’s going to be a finality,” Griffin’s mother, Carol Angelbeck, told the Associated Press.

Worthington, when asked what he would say to Griffin’s parents, directed his comments to her mother. “If my life would bring her peace and bring Mindy back, I’d be fine with that. But it won’t,” he said. “It doesn’t bring peace or closure. She’s still going to have her broken heart.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/06/missouri-executes-michael-worthington

Joseph Wood Arizona Execution

Joseph Wood was executed by the State of Arizona for a double murder committed in 1989. According to court documents Joseph Wood would shoot and kill his estranged girlfriend and her father. Joseph Wood would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Joseph Wood was executed by lethal injection on July 23, 2014 and it did not go well. It would take Joseph Wood nearly two hours to die after given the lethal injection concoction, After the earlier execution of Clayton Lockett in which he ended up dying from a heart attack the lethal injection process was under more scrutiny with many calling it cruel and unusual punishment

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On Wednesday the execution of an Arizona inmate took nearly two hours; the process usually takes just 10 minutes. Some witnesses describe the man, Joseph Rudolph Wood, as snorting and gasping for breath. State officials, however, said he lost consciousness within a few minutes and the noises sounded like snoring. More than an hour had passed when the Federal Public Defender’s Office filed an emergency motion to stop the execution because it qualified as cruel and unusual punishment, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals didn’t respond before Wood died.
Wood, convicted for a double murder in 1989, was executed with a combination of the drugs midazolam and hydromorphone. Corrections departments have had an increasingly difficult time obtaining preferred drugs used for lethal injections because many companies have stopped selling to them, objecting to the use of the drugs in executions.

That left capital punishment states with two final options: they could mix legally available drugs themselves, creating their own ad hoc lethal injections, or they could pay compounding pharmacies to do it for them (compounding pharmacies combine or mix custom drugs, and face little government regulation for small-batch jobs). In effect, they wanted to make up new lethal injection cocktails,” wrote German Lopez and Max Fisher for Vox. “But without a way to do rigorous testing before using the drugs, the execution room effectively became the test lab; death row inmates were also lab rats.”
“[S]upposedly in the name of deterring capital punishment, drug companies are leaving states to experiment with riskier and less effective drug cocktails, the result of which is capital punishment plus some unintended suffering on the side,” wrote Allahpundit of Hot Air. “The strategy here by opponents, in other words, is to shape public opinion by making states choose between either canceling death sentences or facing political fallout from more botched executions caused by unproven drugs.”
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer released a statement saying she was “concerned” by how long the execution process took. “While justice was carried out today, I directed the Department of Corrections to conduct a full review of the process,” Brewer said. “One thing is certain, however, inmate Wood died in a lawful manner and by eyewitness and medical accounts he did not suffer.”

The public needs to know what happened here. What drugs are we using to kill people and what’s the big state secret, if there’s not a problem with those drugs?,” wrote Laurie Roberts of the Arizona Republic. “State officials need to immediately call a halt to all executions until we can be assured that we can kill smoothly and efficiently.”
Andrew Cohen of The Week said Wood’s death shouldn’t have been a surprise, due to several other recent botched executions. “Arizona didn’t just experiment on Wood. It experimented on him without ever subjecting its planned experiment to any sort of independent review,” Cohen wrote. “The state combined midazolam with hydromorphone and topped it off with a series of unsupported, unjustified, untested assurances that all would be okay.”
One of the other botched executions took place this year in Oklahoma, with the prisoner eventually dying of a heart attack 43 minutes after his injection. “The underlying legal question behind all of these incidents is whether or not execution by lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment — and many say that the evidence is mounting that, with these untried cocktails slowing down executions, it is,” wrote Annie-Rose Strasser of ThinkProgress. “Some advocates for the death penalty have even said it’s time to turn toward other methods of execution, including the electric chair, firing squads, and even the guillotine.”

https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2014/07/24/arizona-botches-lethal-injection-execution-of-joseph-wood-pundits-react

John Middleton Missouri Execution

John Middleton was executed by the State of Missouri for a triple murder in 1995. According to court documents John Middleton was a drug dealer and was concerned that people were talking to the police so he went over to the residence and would shoot and kill three people. John Middleton was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. John Middleton was executed by lethal injection on July 16, 2014

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Convicted killer John Middleton was executed by lethal injection at 6:58 p.m. Wednesday following the failure of various appeals on his behalf in the courts. He was pronounced dead at 7:06 p.m.

The U.S. Supreme Court had been asked to halt the execution Wednesday after a federal appeals court ruled the lethal injection could move forward.

Middleton was originally scheduled to die one minute after midnight Wednesday for killing three people in rural northern Missouri in 1995. But less than two hours earlier, a federal judge ruled there was enough evidence of mental illness that a new hearing should take place.

A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled at midday today that the execution could proceed, but Middleton’s attorneys appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and the Missouri Supreme Court.

Attorney General Chris Koster made the following statement after the execution:

“Twenty years ago, John Middleton murdered three people out of fear they would expose him as the drug dealer he was. He received the death penalty for each of his three murders. This evening, Mr. Middleton paid the ultimate price for his choices.”

Missouri law allows a 24-hour window for executions. That means if Middleton had not been executed by midnight, the Missouri Supreme Court would have needed to set a new execution date.

A flurry of appeals and court cases has sought to spare Middleton’s life. U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry first granted a stay early Tuesday, but that was overturned by the appeals court. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ruling and declined to halt the execution on several other grounds, including the contention by Middleton’s attorneys that he was innocent of the crimes.

Middleton’s attorneys then went back to Perry, who again granted a stay late Tuesday night.

Middleton, 54, was the sixth man put to death in Missouri this year. Only Florida and Texas have performed more executions in 2014 with seven each.

Middleton was convicted of killing Randy “Happy” Hamilton, Stacey Hodge and Alfred Pinegar out of concern that they would tell police about his methamphetamine dealing. Middleton’s girlfriend, Maggie Hodges, is serving life in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in all three cases.

Middleton’s attorneys contend that the wrong man was arrested, citing new evidence that included a witness who came forward in February.

“We’re looking at a situation where if (Middleton) had zealous representation at trial he likely would have been acquitted,” attorney Joseph Perkovich said.

Attorney General Koster disagreed.

“The time for enforcement of Missouri’s criminal judgment against John Middleton is long overdue,” Koster wrote in a court response on Tuesday.

Middleton was a meth dealer in sparsely populated northern Missouri in the mid-1990s. After several drug suspects were arrested on June 10, 1995, he allegedly told a friend: “The snitches around here are going to start going down.”

A day later, according to court records, Middleton and his girlfriend met Hamilton and Hodge on a gravel road. Prosecutors said Middleton shot and killed them both and hid the bodies in the trunk of Hamilton’s car.

Pinegar, another meth dealer, was shot in the face on June 23, 1995. His body was found in a field near Bethany.

Middleton allegedly told acquaintances about his exploits. He was charged in all three killings and convicted in 1997.

But in February, a man whose name has not been disclosed because he fears retribution signed an affidavit saying that two rival meth dealers drove him to a rural area soon after Pinegar’s death and accused him of being a snitch. He said the men showed him Pinegar’s body and told him: “There’s already been three people killed. You want to be number four?”

The new witness said the dealers then beat him unconscious with a baseball bat and raped his girlfriend.

Harrison County Sheriff Josh Eckerson agreed to take a new look at the case, but said his investigation found no evidence to back up the new assertions. He is convinced that Middleton is the real killer

John Middleton left a final written statement: “You are killing an innocent man.”

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/convicted-killer-middleton-executed-in-missouri-after-appeals-fail/article_40668666-95a4-5987-a3f2-62600154528c.html