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Rudy Esquivel Texas Execution

Rudy Esquivel was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of an undercover police officer. According to court documents Rudy Esquivel would fatally shoot an undercover police officer who was attempting to arrest him for heroin possession. Rudy Esquivel would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Rudy Esquivel would be executed by lethal injection on June 9 1986

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Without a display of remorse or fear, Rudy Ramos Esquivel was executed by injection today for the murder of an undercover narcotics officer, calmly telling his friends to ‘be cool’ and ‘stay close.’

Esquivel, 50, died at 12:21 a.m. CST, becoming the third man executed in Texas in as many months. He was the 14th person put to death in Texas since it resumed capital punishment in 1982 and the 59th in the United States since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen an individual as calm and cheerful and peaceful when he was about to meet his maker,’ said Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox, who spoke with Esquivel before watching him put to death.

Esquivel was convicted of killing Houston police officer Timothy Hearn, 28, on June 8, 1978, during a shoot-out. He claimed police officers had tried to plant heroin on him and said he felt no remorse for the shootings.

Esquivel invited four friends to his execution. ‘Be cool,’ he told them. ‘Thank you for being my friends. Give my love to everybody.’

The witnesses told Esquivel they loved him, and he replied, ‘I love you all. Stay close. Everything’s going to be all right.’

Witness Barbara Longoria read a biblical passage from 2 Timothy, and Esquivel smiled. As a hidden executioner pumped a mixture of three poisons through an intravenous tube, the four witnesses whispered prayers. Esquivel breathed deeply six times, his chest heaving, then made a snoring sound and died.

Longoria fell into the arms of her husband, Pilo, weeping.

‘It’s OK,’ he told her, ‘He’s with the Lord. He’s at peace.’

Esquivel was convicted of shooting Hearn during a drug raid in a Houston parking lot. Hearn’s partner and Esquivel were wounded in the shoot-out.

Esquivel claimed the shooting occurred after the officers tried to plant heroin in his pocket because he had refused to become an informant. He also said he had been convicted unfairly because Hispanics were excluded from his trial jury.

‘I was set up and I have no remorse in me,’ he told reporters recently. ‘I accept what is happening. My great strength is that I know I was right.’

At the time of the killing, Esquivel was on parole from a 99-year sentence he received in 1953. He had been convicted at age 17 in the gang rape of a woman on her way to church, and served 11 years. Esquivel also had been jailed in California for assaulting a police officer and forgery.

Rudy Esquivel lost an appeal before the Supreme Court less than 10 hours before his execution. He took the news calmly and without comment, prison officials said.

Esquivel, who spent Sunday morning watching television, met with relatives, friends, his attorney and a prison minister in the afternoon.

Rudy Esquivel had won a stay of execution Friday from a federal judge, who gave attorneys 20 days to present more evidence of their claim that Hispanics were improperly excluded from Esquivel’s trial jury.

The state appealed, and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans reinstated the death date Saturday.

Esquivel had been on death row since 1978, and had won stays of three previous execution dates.

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/06/09/Esquivel-executed-in-Texas/4434518673600/

Jay Pinkerton Texas Execution

Jay Pinkerton was executed by the State of Texas for two sexual assaults and murders. According to court documents Jay Pinkerton, who was 17 years old, would sexually assault and murder two women in two separate crimes. Jay Pinkerton would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Jay Pinkerton at 24 years old would become one of the youngest people to be executed in Texas since the return of capital punishment in the 1970’s. Jay Pinkerton would be executed by way of lethal injection on May 15 1986

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Jay Kelly Pinkerton, convicted of the mutilation-slaying of one woman and the murder of another, said goodbye to his father and was executed today by injection, nine months after escaping the same fate by just 26 minutes.

Pinkerton, 24, was pronounced dead at 12:25 a.m., said Assistant Attorney General Monroe Clayton, just hours after federal judges rejected an appeal hand-delivered by Pinkerton’s mother.

His father, Gene, the only relative to witness the execution, gripped an aluminum rail in the death chamber a few feet from his son

″Be strong for me,″ Pinkerton told his father. ″I want you to know that I’m at peace with myself and with my God. I talked to everybody on the phone. I got to talk to Mom. Say goodbye to Mom. Keep your spirits up for me.″

Then he chanted: ″I bear witness to Allah. I ask for your forgiveness.″

″Bye, Jay,″ his father said.

″I love you, Dad,″ replied Pinkerton, who then said, ″I feel dizziness. I feel dizziness.″ He yawned, his eyes closed, and he died.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday twice refused to block the execution.

After the first rejection, Pinkerton’s mother, Margie, carried a personal appeal from her son to U.S. District Judge Hayden Head of Corpus Christi. Head, who was in Houston for a meeting, denied the appeal about 25 minutes later. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans and the Supreme Court then also refused to stop the execution.

Pinkerton, an apprentice meat cutter, was executed for raping and mutilating Sarah Donn Lawrence in 1979 during a burglary of her Amarillo home when he was 17 years old. Mrs. Lawrence, 30, was stabbed more than 50 times and her throat was slashed.

Pinkerton also was convicted of the 1980 murder of Sherry Welch, 25, of Amarillo, who was stabbed while working in an furniture store.

Even before the final appeals were rejected Gov. Mark White announced he would not halt the execution, calling the slayings ″two of the most brutal and heinous crimes imaginable.″

″After years of litigation, Mr. Pinkerton’s case has been scrutinized in detail and no errors have been found,″ White said. ″It is time that the state be allowed to carry out its lawful punishment.″

Pinkerton averted death in August just 26 minutes before he was to be taken into the death chamber. Another stay was granted in November just 10 hours before his scheduled execution.

Pinkerton’s attorney, Dean Roper, said the appeal delivered by Pinkerton’s mother was unusual but legitimate. It contended that the jury was not asked the proper questions during the sentencing phase of the trial, particularly whether Pinkerton was provoked by Mrs. Lawrence into killing her.

Randy Sherrod, the Randall County district attorney who prosecuted Pinkerton, said the appeals were merely attempts to gain time for the condemned man, and that there was no question of provocation.

The execution was the seventh in the nation this year and the third in Texas. Pinkerton was among the youngest people executed since the U.S. Supreme Court lifted its ban on the death penalty in 1976. The youngest was Jesse de la Rosa, executed in Texas in 1985 for murdering a convenience store clerk in 1979. His age initially was reported as 24, but state prison officials said today he had been 23.

The slayings terrorized the Amarillo area, prompting people to buy extra locks for doors and guns to protect themselves.

Fewer than a dozen spectators stood in a thunderstorm outside the prison while the execution was taking place. Among them was June Morgan, of New Waverly, an aunt of Mrs. Lawrence.

″I can’t believe I’m here hoping somebody dies,″ she said. ″But he’s not a people. He’s an animal.″

https://apnews.com/article/88ee539aeb84853a2f65d0927fb90348

David Funchess Florida Execution

David Funchess was executed by the State of Florida for the murders of two people. According to court documents David Funchess would stab to death two people during a robbery at a lounge. David Funchess would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. David Funchess would be executed by way of the electric chair on April 22 1986

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A man who was wounded in Vietnam and convicted in the slaying of two bar employees in Jacksonville in 1974 was executed here today in the electric chair.

The convict, David Livingston Funchess, 39 years old, was executed 90 minutes after the United States Supreme Court voted 7 to 2 not to extend a five-hour stay it issued earlier today. He was pronounced dead at 5:11 P.M.

”I feel sorry for his family,” said Madge Stewart, whose father, Clayton Ragan, was killed, along with Anna Waldrop, by Mr. Funchess. ”They’re going to lose a loved one. But they got to see him 11 years longer than I got to see my loved one.”

She and Betti Shupe, the daughter of Mrs. Waldrop, hugged when told that Mr. Funchess was dead.

The execution had been set for 7 A.M. but was stayed by a Federal appeals court in Atlanta. It was later stayed again by the Supreme Court. Convicted in 1975

Mr. Funchess, diagnosed as suffering from stress stemming from duty in Vietnam, was the 56th person executed in the United States since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, and the third in eight days.

Peter Erlinder, a professor at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minn., who has researched the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder on Vietnam veterans, said Mr. Funchess was the first veteran executed despite being diagnosed as suffering from the disorder.

Mr. Erlinger said at least two Vietnam veterans had been acquitted of murder charges after asserting that they suffered from the disorder, which was not recognized until 1980. Mr. Funchess was convicted in 1975.

Mr. Funchess was condemned to die for killing a woman and a man in a holdup Dec. 16, 1974, in a Jacksonville bar, where he worked a year earlier. Served Two and a Half Months

Mr. Funchess’s lawyer, Jeff Thompson, also a Vietnam veteran, had argued that Mr. Funchess was a victim of post-traumatic stress disorder, an affliction said to have affected thousands of veterans who are unable to adjust to civilian life after combat in an unpopular war.

Symptoms include experiencing flashbacks and suppressing memories of violence.

David Funchess was 19, had no criminal record and had graduated in the top third of his high school class when he was drafted in 1967. He was wounded when he stepped on a land mine after serving two and a half months and was then discharged.

Vernon Bradford, a spokesman for the State Department of Corrections, said Mr. Funchess’s parents, Wenis Funchess and Alice Roberts; his wife, Christine, and three sisters and two brothers visited him from late Monday until early today

https://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/23/us/vietnam-veteran-is-put-to-death-in-florida.html

Jeffrey Barney Texas Execution

Jeffrey Barney was executed by the State of Texas for the sexual assault and murder of a woman. According to court documents Jeffrey Barney would get into an argument with the victim who he would then sexually assault and then strangle with a phone cord. Jeffrey Barney would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Jeffrey Barney would be executed by lethal injection on April 16, 1986

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Jeffrey Barney, who said he deserved to die for the rape and murder of a minister’s wife, was executed by injection early Wednesday.

Barney, 28, who dismissed his attorney and rejected appeals of his conviction, was pronounced dead at 1:22 a.m. EST, authorities said.

‘I’m sorry for what I done, and I deserve it, and I hope Jesus forgives me,’ Barney said as he lay on the gurney just before he was executed.

One tear rolled down his cheek, but he smiled and said to the Rev. Freddie Wier, his only witness, ‘May God bless you, Freddie.’

‘May God bless you, son,’ the Harris County Jail chaplain responded.

‘I’m tingling all over,’ Barney said after the deadly solution had begun to seep into his veins. He jerked, let out what sounded like a snore, then lay still.

‘He was very calm, cheerful, nearly joking with the chaplain and other people as he was prepared,’ said Attorney General Jim Mattox, who witnessed the execution. ‘He seemed resolved to what was taking place and even very glad it was taking place.’

He was the 12th inmate in Texas and the 55th in the nation to be executed since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. A Florida inmate, Daniel Morris Thomas, was executed at 12:19 p.m. EST Tuesday

Barney, described as ‘calm and in a good mood,’ had awaited his execution in a cell near the execution chamber, eating a final meal of frosted flakes, visiting with Wier and playing dominoes with a prison officer. Wier was Barney’s only witness.

Barney, a native of Dayton, Ohio, requested sausage pizza and milk for lunch and asked for two boxes of breakfast cereal and a pint of milk for his final meal.

Barney, who admitted the brutality of his crime, fired his lawyer and refused to authorize any appeals. His conviction and death sentence were upheld during a state appeal guaranteed by law.

He was convicted of killing Ruby Mae Longsworth, 54, in her Pasadena, Texas, home Nov. 24, 1981, while her husband was attending a ministers’ convention.

‘I don’t want to live the rest of my life in prison,’ Barney told reporters earlier this year, adding he deserved to die and was willing to administer the lethal injection himself.

‘If someone had done that to my mother, (execution) wouldn’t have been enough punishment,’ Barney said. ‘It’s been too easy for me. I just sit there in my cell every day. I’m a loner. That’s the way I prefer it.’

Houston lawyer Mary Moore offered to appeal on Barney’s behalf, but he refused her efforts and a Houston judge granted Barney’s request to have her removed from the case.

About 30 students from nearby Sam Houston State University who favor the death penalty gathered, drinking and giggling, at an outdoor death watch party about a block from the death chamber.

‘We’re for it until they come up withsomething better,’ one said of capital punishment.

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/04/16/Jeffrey-Allen-Barney-who-said-he-deserved-to-die/6421514011600/

Daniel Thomas Florida Execution

Daniel Thomas was executed by the State of Florida for a sexual assault and murder. According to court documents Daniel Thomas would break into a home where he would shoot the male homeowner before sexually assaulting the man’s wife. Daniel Thomas would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Daniel Thomas would be executed by way of the electric chair on April 15 1986

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Kicking, cursing and fighting with five Death Row guards, ski-mask killer Daniel Thomas was strapped into Florida’s electric chair Tuesday and executed for murdering a man and raping his wife as her husband lay dying.

Veteran observers said the struggle was the first to take place in Florida State Prison’s death room within memory.

Cursing and screaming ″Get off me 3/8 Get off me 3/8″ Thomas, 37, was subdued after a seven-minute struggle during which he kicked one guard in the groin and tried to bite another on the arm.

He was pronounced dead at 12:19 p.m. EST – the 14th man electrocuted in the state since 1979, after the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty.

″It was violent. It was the first time this has happened in my experience, … and I’ve never heard of it before,″ said prison spokesman Vernon Bradford.

Daniel Thomas, a member of the ″ski-mask gang″ that rampaged through rural central Florida for 10 months in 1975 and 1976, was convicted of the New Year’s Day 1976 shooting death of Charles Anderson, 48.

The killer forced Anderson’s wife, Betty, to have sex with him as Anderson bled to death in their Polk County home.

During the death-chamber melee, Thomas, about 6 feet tall and 180 pounds, slid down into the chair, his legs thrashing wildly at the men trying to restrain him.

Guards, assisted by a doctor and a physician’s assistant, managed to stop Thomas’ outburst and pin him to the three-legged, oak electric chair. A strap was placed around his chin.

Prison Superintendent Richard Dugger then approached the condemned man, leaned over and spoke directly into his face, apparently telling him he would not be able to read his last statement unless he settled down.

Panting wildly for about 20 seconds, Thomas quieted and began reading from a yellow legal sheet in a low voice, much of it incomprehensible to 19 witnesses, stunned by the struggle they had observed through large windows.

″We are human tools, political pawns, political human sacrifices for the politicians,″ Thomas mumbled, referring to Florida’s 241 death row prisoners.

The black-hooded executioner threw the switch sending 2,000 volts through the prisoner’s body at 12:14 p.m. Thomas was pronounced dead five minutes later.

Gov. Bob Graham, in a statement in Tallahassee after Thomas’ sentence was carried out, drew a parallel to the U.S. raid on Libya.

″The taking of human life is the most difficult action of government, whether it occurs on foreign soil or within our state,″ Graham said.

″Society must be prepared to defend itself against those who have little regard for human life by invoking this ultimate penalty,″ Graham said.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a final appeal about six minutes before Thomas entered the death chamber. It was Thomas’ second death warrant. He escaped the electric chair in October 1982, receiving a stay from a federal judge just hours before his scheduled date.

It was the first execution in Florida in almost 11 months and came on the ninth anniversary of the imposition of Thomas’ death sentence.

Earlier this week, Mrs. Anderson said Thomas’ execution might help relieve the sleepless nights she had experienced since her husband’s murder.

″Everyone gives more sympathy to the criminals than to the victims,″ Mrs. Anderson said. ″The victims have to live with this. Even after he (Thomas) is dead and gone, they’ll still be living with it.″

https://apnews.com/article/ad166994ad2a60e351bbb6e18177b296