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Arthur Jones Alabama Execution

Arthur Jones was executed by the State of Alabama for the murder of a taxi driver. According to court documents Arthur Jones would fatally shoot taxi driver William Hosea Waymon during a robbery. Arthur Jones would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Arthur Jones would be executed by way of the electric chair on March 21 1986

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Inmates shouted and clanged on prison bars today as double murderer Arthur Lee Jones Jr. was led to the electric chair and executed for shooting a 71- year-old cab driver to death during a robbery.

Arthur Jones, 47, who was first arrested 30 years ago and came within 16 hours of execution in 1984, was pronounced dead at 12:15 a.m., seven minutes after a 30-second surge of 1,900 volts passed through his stocky, 5-foot-3 frame.

His face was covered with a black veil that hung from the front of a metal skullcap containing electrodes, and his feet didn’t reach the floor as he sat in the electric chair known as ″Yellow Mama″ for its garish color.

Arthur Jones ″seemed to be thinking and getting control of himself″ as he was led into the death chamber to the sound of inmates shouting and clanging on the bars in Holman Prison, said state Prison Commissioner Freddie Smith.

″He was calm and collected,″ Smith said. ″There was, as we predicted, no last remarks whatsoever.″

Jones, a Muslim who argued that those of his faith don’t steal or kill and that police had framed him for the 1981 slaying of cabbie William Hosea Waymon, was the 53rd person executed since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. He also was under a death sentence for the murder of Vaughn Thompson, 21, during another robbery in 1981.

He was the first person executed in Alabama since 1983, when an execution that took 14 minutes raised calls for changing the method of death.

Jones was executed after after the U.S. Supreme Court refused late Thursday on a 5-4 vote to delay it and Gov. George C. Wallace declined to commute the sentence to life in prison.

Wallace ″prayed extensively about it and read his (Jones’) record and decided not to grant a stay,″ said Smith, who was on the telephone with the governor throughout the execution.

Warden Willie Johnson, 43, a 20-year veteran of the prison system, threw the switch that killed Jones. It was Johnson’s first execution.

″When you’re poor and hired out, you do what’s required of you,″ he said.

John Furman of Mobile, Jones’ attorney and one of the witnesses to the execution, said Jones had lost contact with his relatives but events leading up to the execution had brought some of them together.

Jones spent about eight hours Thursday with two sisters and a female cousin. Smith said Jones spoke briefly by telephone with his estranged wife, whom he did not identify, about 1 1/2 hours before the execution.

He ate a last meal of pink salmon, cole slaw, candied yams, chilled peaches and a grape drink, officials said.

″I believe the state of Alabama has fulfilled a solemn responsibility to its citizens tonight by executing Arthur Lee Jones,″ Attorney General Charles Graddick said. ″Jones was a habitual offender who was given chance after chance to reform.″

Death-penalty opponents rallied Thursday at the Capitol in Montgomery.

https://apnews.com/article/1e8c7580536b34df4a853df73793318c

Charlie Bass Texas Execution

Charlie Bass was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of a city Marshall. According to court documents Charlie Bass was stopped by Houston City Marshall Charles Baker when a fight ensued and Bass would fatally shoot Baker. Charlie Bass would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Charlie Bass would be executed by lethal injection on March 12 1986

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A man convicted of murdering a city marshal in a Houston shootout was put to death by injection early today after telling his weeping mother, ″Don’t feel bad, Mama. I deserve this.″

″Tell everybody goodbye,″ Charles Bass, 29, told his mother, Rose England, who was among witnesses to the execution.

″God’s going to take care of you,″ she replied. ″I love you, sweetheart.″

Bass took two deep breaths, looked at her, then stared at the ceiling. He was pronounced dead at 12:21 a.m., said Attorney General Jim Mattox.

The execution at the Texas Department of Corrections’ Wall Unit was the second in the United States this year and the 52nd since the Supreme Court allowed states to resume capital punishment in 1976.

Another condemned killer, Roger ″Animal″ DeGarmo, had also been scheduled for execution early today, but won a stay from a federal judge in Houston Tuesday.

Bass appealed to the Supreme Court for a stay, but the court turned the request down in a 7-2 vote late Tuesday, rejecting arguments that he didn’t get a fair trial because his attorney allegedly had a conflict of interest.

He was convicted in 1980 in the August 1979 slaying of Houston City Marshal Charles Henry Baker, who along with another officer investigating a $300 holdup stopped Bass as he was walking down a street. In a scuffle that ensued, Bass and Baker traded gunfire.

Both were wounded, and Bass again shot Baker while fleeing. He was arrested four days later in Kentucky after police were tipped off by his relatives.

Bass had insisted Baker was shot in self-defense.

Bert Graham, the assistant district attorney who prosecuted Bass, said the execution was ″a matter of self-defense for society.″

″You never wish some ill on anyone, but he has demonstrated that if society doesn’t put an end to his life, he is going to put an end to some innocent’s life,″ Graham said.

Bass’ criminal record included lengthy juvenile detention. He also served a prison term for burglary. A counselor testified at his trial that Bass once told of stabbing his mother in the back.

Mattox said he was surprised by the execution because many inmates have obtained stays. ″But as he said, he felt like he was getting something he deserved.″

DeGarmo’s attorneys argued successfully Tuesday that people opposed to the death penalty were excluded from the jury in his trial.

″I am unhappy for myself but am happy for my people,″ said DeGarmo, who had demanded to be put to death, but requested a stay because of his family.

Had Bass and DeGarmo both been put to death, it would have been the first double execution in a state since 1976 and the first in Texas since 1951.

Friends visited both inmates Tuesday. Bass ate a plain cheese sandwich as his final meal late in the evening, and a chaplain gave him Holy Communion.

DeGarmo gained notoriety when he auctioned off three of the five witness seats a convict is allowed in the death chamber, and promised to give a play- by-play account of his last minutes of life. Seven people bid for the seats, and two offered $1,500 apiece. DeGarmo, who refused to identify the bidders, said the money would be divided between his family and the victim’s.

He was sentenced to death for the 1979 slaying of Kimberly Ann Strickler, a 20-year-old Houston hematologist who was shot to death as she lay in the trunk of her car after being kidnapped from a shopping center parking lot.

The first execution this year was that of James Terry Roach, 25, who was electrocuted in South Carolina Jan. 10 for murdering two teen-agers when he was 17 years old

https://apnews.com/article/194067a1e2f12d79087bc35f1d9d0bbf

Morris Mason Virginia Execution

Morris Mason was executed by the State of Virginia for the sexual assault and murder of an elderly woman. According to court documents Morris Mason would sexually assault, murder and then set the house on fire of the elderly victim. Morris Mason who was a serial rapist would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Morris Mason would be executed by way of the electric chair on June 25 1985

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Morris Mason, convicted in a 1978 crime spree, went calmly and silently to his death in the electric chair after efforts to block the execution because of his mental impairment failed.

Mason, a 32-year-old laborer, was led to the basement death chamber at the state penitentiary about four hours after the U.S. Supreme Court denied a final appeal, said prison spokeswoman Kathi King. He made no statement.

He was pronounced dead at 11:07 p.m. Tuesay, Ms. King said.

Mason was convicted of raping and murdering Margaret K. Hand, 71, who was beaten to death. Her hand was nailed to a chair and her house was set afire.

He also confessed to raping and murdering another elderly woman, raping a 12-year-old girl and maiming her 13-year-old sister, a two-week string of acts he said were prompted by voices ″telling me to destroy something, tear up something.″

The Supreme Court voted 7-2 Tuesday night against granting a stay, the fourth time justices declined to hear an appeal.

Mason’s lawyer, J. Lloyd Snook, had contended in appeals that Mason’s IQ of 66, or mildly retarded, and paranoid schizophrenia made the death penalty inappropriate. In IQ of 90 to 109 is normal.

He said Mason had the mind of a child and was unaware he was about to die.

″In my opinion, he knew all the time what was going on,″ said Toni Bair, warden of Mecklenburg Correctional Center. ″He was totally calm, very coherent, calm.″

Snook said Mason appeared ″quiet, nervous. He didn’t have a whole lot to say. He was determined to be strong.″

″The last thing he said to me was ‘Warden, I gave you my word that I would go out strong, and I’m going out strong.’ He told me that twice,″ Bair said.

Almost 200 death penalty advocates gathered outside the prison. They cheered loudly at word the execution had been carried out.

About 100 anti-death penalty protestors staged a quiet candlelight vigil.

Gov. Charles S. Robb, Mason’s last hope for a reprieve, declined to intervene, despite a telephoned appeal from an aide to U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., chairman of the House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice.

Conyers aide Julian Epstein spoke with Robb on the congressman’s behalf.

″We have been very disturbed over the whole pattern of racial discrimination ,″ he said in a telephone interview from Conyers’ Washington, D.C., office. Mason was black.

″We don’t get involved in every case, but this one seems to stand out,″ Epstein said.

He said Conyers agreed with Snook that Mason should have had an independent mental evaluation before being sentenced.

Mason’s was the third execution in the last eight months in Virginia and the fourth since the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for the death penalty in 1976.

https://apnews.com/article/7810c2a047380d56ef609f851dd2a788

Charles Milton Texas Execution

Charles Milton was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of a store clerk during a robbery. According to court documents Charles Milton was robbing a liquor store when he shot and killed the owner. Charles Milton would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Charles Milton was executed by lethal injection on May 25 1985

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Charles Milton, convicted of murdering a liquor store owner during a robbery, was executed by injection today after last-minute appeals to Gov. Mark White and the U.S. Supreme Court failed.

Milton, 34, of Fort Worth, who converted to Islam while in prison, used his final statement while strapped to a Texas Department of Corrections gurney to pray to Allah and to urge his ″brothers and sisters to be strong.″

He was sentenced to death for the slaying eight years and one day ago of Fort Worth liquor store owner Menaree Denton, who was shot in the heart while she and her husband, Leonard, struggled with Milton during an aborted robbery

Defense attorneys contended the shooting was an accident.

The legal scramble through the state and federal courts climaxed at 1 a.m. with word that the Supreme Court had refused to act. White, as has been his custom, then rejected the petition for a reprieve.

Milton, with needles inserted into his arms to carry the lethal drugs, had little reaction and died peacefully. His only deliberate movement as the drugs entered his system was to nod to his brother-in-law, Joseph Smith, one of five personal witnesses he selected.

He was pronounced dead at 1:33 a.m., becoming the fourth Texas prison inmate this year and eighth overall to be executed since the state resumed the death penalty in 1982.

In a two-page typewritten statement released late Monday, Milton said he suffered many sleepless nights for the crime.

″I am sorry Mrs. Denton was killed in the struggle over the gun, but I didn’t even know Mrs. Denton was dead until several days later,″ he wrote. He said her husband was as much to blame because of the struggle for the weapon.

Milton’s written statement asked Allah for forgiveness. But he also criticized his attorneys for the handling of his case, saying he learned more about it through newspapers or the radio than from them.

″My final words are to my mother,″ the statement said. ″I have lived my last years as a Muslim. I die as a Muslim and I would like to be buried as a Muslim. I have no hard feeling to anyone in this world.″

He signed his statement as ″Hakeem Saboor Rahim a.k.a. Charles Milton.″

Earlier Monday he met with two sisters, his ex-wife and four children

″He would have been all right if he hadn’t got involved with dope,″ said Helen Milton, his former wife, who said he had a $600-a-day drug addiction. ″He did the best he could, and two weeks before the incident he was talking about how he was clean and going to move back in.″

Today’s death date was Milton’s third. Two earlier dates had been stayed. He had been on Death Row more than six years.

https://apnews.com/article/baeb3eca846c5d53d8d904724f7092c8

Marvin Francois Florida Execution

Marvin Francois was executed by the State of Florida for the murders of six people. According to court documents Marvin Francois would enter a drug house and open fire killing six people. Marvin Francois would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Marvin Francois would be executed by way of the electric chair on May 29 1985

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Former heroin addict Marvin Francois died in the electric chair today for the 1977 execution-style slayings of an alleged drug dealer and five other people.

Francois, 39, was pronounced dead shortly after 7 a.m. EDT from a 2,000-volt surge of electricity in Florida’s ‘Old Sparky’ wooden electric chair. He spent his final hours alone early today after embracing his mother and children one last time.

He ate a hearty last meal of shrimp, lobster tail, barbecued spare ribs, chicken breast, watermelon, strawberries, sliced tomatoes and french fries in his Florida State Prison cell at 4:30 a.m.

The convicted killer, who refused the services of a clergyman, became the 12th person executed in the United States this year, the 44th since the Supreme Court lifted its ban on capital punishment in 1976.

About 25 anti-death penalty protesters and two people favoring executions marched outside the prison in rural northern Florida.

Prison spokesman Vernon Bradford said Francois was allowed visitors from 8 p.m. until midnight through a glass partition. At midnight his mother, girlfriend and twin teenage children were allowed a ‘contact’ visit.

The condemned man’s mother, Muriel Hollingsworth, and girlfriend, Juanita Pace, of Miami, accompanied his son Aleasian and daughter Alexis to the prison.

Francois did not receive a last-minute visit from his 37-year-old brother Kerry, of Miami. The brother was paroled from the Florida State Prison in 1980 after serving 16 years of a life sentence for murder.

Francois had been scheduled to die Tuesday morning but won a temporary stay from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. Tuesday night, however, the Supreme Court turned down his final request for a stay.

He was sentenced to die for the July 27, 1977, murder of six people and the wounding of two others at a northwest Miami house believed the headquarters of a drug ring.

At a 1982 clemency board hearing, Francois’ attorney said he had become helpless because of heroin addiction and was framed by ‘scanty and unreliable’ evidence.

Prosecutors contended Francois was hired by a drug dealer to kill a competitor and the other victims were shot because his face mask slipped and he feared they could identify him.

Police said the victims were forced to lie face down and then shot in the head. Francois was identified as the gunman by a survivor, an accomplice and by his common-law wife.

But assistant public defender Rory Stein said Francois was a victim of a cruel childhood. He said as a boy Francois was forced to live on the streets of New Orleans because his father was a drug addict, his mother a prostitute.

‘Mr. Francois has had a difficult and hard life,’ Stein said. ‘He is a weak man.’

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1985/05/29/Former-heroin-addict-Marvin-Francois-died-in-the-electric/6564486187200/