US Executions | My Crime Library

Roosevelt Green Georgia Execution

Roosevelt Green was executed by the State of Georgia for the robbery, kidnapping, sexual assault and murder of a woman. According to court documents Roosevelt Green would kidnap the victim from her place of work after stealing money from the cash register. Roosevelt Green would take the woman to a remote location where she was sexually assaulted and murdered. Roosevelt Green would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Roosevelt Green would be executed by way of the electric chair on January 9, 1985

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Coed killer Roosevelt Green, insisting he is innocent, lost a last-minute bid for clemency Tuesday and was to die in Georgia’s electric chair shortly after midnight with his mother watching.

The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles refused to grant a reprieve for Green, a black man twice convicted of killing an 18-year-old white coed in 1976.

Green, 28, was to be executed at 12:15 a.m. EST Wednesday and prison officials said his mother, Annie B. Green, would be among the 14 official execution witnesses.

Prisons spokesman Freed Steeple said Green, after a lengthy afternoon visit with his mother, formally asked prison officials to allow her to witness his execution.

Steeple said warden Ralph Kemp then asked Green’s mother if she wanted to witness the execution, ‘and she said yes, which is surprising.’

Steeple said to his knowledge, no mother had ever watched her son executed in Georgia — at least not in recent history.

Green requested no special last meal, Steeple said, and declined to eat the regular prison dinner of turkey pot pie.

Steeple said Green’s visitors left the prison at 4:15 p.m. and the condemned man ‘is just just watching television

The former migrant worker insisted he was not present when Theresa Carol Allen, an honors student from Cochran, Ga., was shot twice with a high-powered rifle — a claim supported by his accomplice.

‘We believe Roosevelt Green was an active participant in a continuing conspiracy and the logical conclusion of that conspiracy was murder,’ said Michael Wing, chairman of the five-member parole board. ‘Whether or not he pulled the trigger, we do not know.’

Green would be the fourth person executed in Georgia and the 34th in the nation since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976. He would be the third to die in the United States within two weeks.

The Supreme Court denied a stay of execution Monday in a rare 4-4 tie vote.

Prison spokesman Fred Steeple said Green spent most of his final hours visiting in his death watch cell with his mother, attorneys and the Rev. Murphy Davis, a prison minister. Steeple said Green made no special requests.

Davis said Green’s mother had hoped the parole board would grant her son a reprieve, saying she believed the evidence was ‘enough to grant clemency.’

Green visited Monday with his boyhood friend from Minter, Ala., William Daniels, Daniels’ wife and their five children.

‘They say he’s the meanest man in prison,’ said Davis, ‘but if you could have seen him sitting with those children on his lap …’

Green, was sentenced to death twice for the murder of Allen, who was abducted from a convenience store, raped, shot twice and her body dumped in a rural area.

Carzell Moore also was convicted of the slaying and sentenced to death. He remains on death row.

Moore, according to appeal testimony, told another inmate that after the abduction, he was left alone with Allen, a freshman nursing student at Middle Georgia College, while Green went to get gas. Moore said he then shot the woman.

The Georgia Supreme Court ruled in a 1980 appeal the conviction should stand because Green left the woman alone on a dark road witha man he knew to be dangerous.

Kenneth Allen, the victim’s 25-year-old brother, said he had forgiven Green for the murder, but still thought the execution should be carried out.

‘I am a born-again Christian, and even if the sentence isn’t carried out, I forgive him,’ said Allen. ‘But capital punishment is part of our judicial system. If they’re not going to carry it out, they should take it off the books.

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1985/01/08/Coed-killer-Roosevelt-Green-insisting-he-is-innocent-lost/9820474008400/

David Martin Louisiana Execution

David Martin was executed by the State of Louisiana for a quadruple murders. According to court documents David Martin would find out his wife was cheating on him and would go to the man’s home where he would open fire killing Bobby Todd, Terry Hebert, Anne Tierney, and Sandra Brake. David Martin would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. David Martin would be executed by way of the electric chair on January 4 1985

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David Dene Martin, a former youth conselor who said stress and drugs led him to murder his wife’s lover and three other people, was executed early today after the State Pardon Board refused a last-minute plea to spare him from the electric chair.

He was pronounced dead at 12:16 A.M. central standard time, said C. Paul Phelps, secretary of the state Department of Corrections.

Mr. Martin’s execution, the 33rd in the nation since the 1976 Supreme Court decision that allowed states to impose the death penalty, was the second in Louisiana in eight days. All court appeals were long ago exhausted.

Slayings in 1977

Mr. Martin, 32 years old, was executed for the Aug. 14, 1977, slayings of Bobby Todd, a bar owner with whom Mr. Martin’s wife, Gloria, said she was having an affair, and three other people who happened to be at Mr. Todd’s mobile home in Bayou Blue when Mr. Martin walked in and started shooting.

Mr. Martin’s attorney, Richard Shapiro, maintained that Mr. Martin was driven to murder after his wife’s affair and after his daughter was born with birth defects. Mr. Shapiro said Mr. Martin was under the influence of alcohol and the drug phencyclidine, also known as PCP or angel dust, at the time of the slayings.

Spent Evening With Minister

Mr. Martin spent Thursday evening at Louisiana State Penitentiary with the Rev. Ray Winders of Paris, Tex., a Seventh-day Adventist and Mr. Martin’s spiritual adviser.

”They were talking and reading the Bible,” said Frank Blackburn, the prison warden. ”I asked if there was anything special he wanted to report to the news media and he said, ‘No.’ ”

”He had a last meal of Sloppy Joes and french fries,” the warden said. ”He didn’t want anything special. That’s what was on fare for everybody tonight.”

”He seemed to be in very good spirits,” Mr. Blackburn said.

His mother, three sisters and half- brother attended the five-hour hearing of the pardon board, and wept after the board announced its 5-0 decision without comment.

One sister, Luvena Farinala of Wheeling, W.Va., testified tearfully: ”I don’t want to see him die. He has touched the lives of many people spiritually, intellectually and personally.”

Mr. Martin’s mother and another sister also testified.

Calm at Pardon Hearing

Mr. Martin showed little emotion, nodding only to acknowledge that he understood. He then turned to Mr. Shapiro, shook his hand and said, ”You’ve been a good friend.”

A native of Keene, Tex., Mr. Martin married soon after moving to Houma in southeast Louisiana in 1973. In Houma, he led many social programs for the Seventh-day Adventists through the church’s Way-Out Help Clinic.

In those programs, he monitored a hotline for troubled teen-agers, counseled young people and played folk songs on his guitar. He supported himself as a carpenter, maintenance man and door-to-door salesman.

The United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit noted that a divided Louisiana Supreme Court had affirmed David Martin’s death penalty by a 4-3 vote, with the three dissenters saying death was too harsh a penalty in this case.

Evidence in the case showed that Mr. Martin reloaded his revolver twice, pulled the trigger 15 times and confessed the crime to five people. While Mr. Shapiro stressed the influence of drugs and alcohol, the judges of the appeals court said the evidence indicated Mr. Martin had planned the murders in advance.

Anthony Antone Florida Execution

Anthony Antone was executed by the State of Florida for a murder for hire. According to court documents Anthony Antone and another man were paid by Mob boss Victor Acosta to murder a private detective . Anthony Antone would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Victor Acosta and the man who allegedly pulled the trigger would both commit suicide after being arrested. Anthony Antone would be executed by way of the electric chair on January 26, 1984

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Anthony Antone, Florida’s oldest condemned prisoner, prepared calmly for death as his attorneys awaited word Monday on two-last minute appeals that could halt the execution scheduled for 7 a.m. EST Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge George Carr rejected a stay of execution in Tampa earlier Monday, and Antone’s attorneys immediately took their case to the 11th U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta, which still had not ruled late Monday night

The execution was expected to take place at 7 a.m. EST Tuesday unless a stay was issued by the Atlanta court or by the Supreme Court, at which the attorneys readied a plea. There was no indication when the two courts would rule.

Antone, 66, was convicted of being the go-between in the hired murder of former Tampa vice squad Sgt. Richard Cloud in 1975.

If executed, he would be the 12th man put to death since the Supreme Court lifted its ban on capital punishment in 1976, and the third in Florida. The last man to die in Florida’s electric chair was Robert Sullivan, executed Nov. 30, 1983.

Antone was scheduled to die in the electric chair Feb. 2 1982, but was granted a stay by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeal in Atlanta the day before.

Carr had ruled three days earlier he found no merit to Antone’s appeal, but then granted a temporary stay as a precautionary measure.

Carr ruled Monday the four points cited by defense attorney Tom McCoun were invalid because McCoun had raised the same arguments two years before, and Carr had rejected them.

Antone said at at jailhouse news conference Monday he was prepared to die.

‘I don’t fear death. As far as I’m concerned, death is merely discarding the vehicle and life goes on,’ Antone told reporters at Florida State Prison.

Wearing a blue prison uniforms and faded yellow T-shirt, the self-proclaimed metaphysicist also insisted he was innocentof the gangland-style slaying.

‘I didn’t kill anyone. Everyone knows that. There are people here who raped and killed and the government saw fit to give them life (terms),’ he said. ‘They know who (the real killer) is — law enforcement and the prosecutor — They know who it is but I don’t want to say.’

‘Being a Sicilian, They put a stigma on me of being associated with the Mafia. I have nothing to do with the Mafia,’ he said. ‘I was just a guy knocking a living, working with air conditioners.’

Antone was convicted of being the middle man between mobster Victor Acosta, hit-man Benjamin Gilford and getaway car driver Ellis Haskew. Gilford admitted shooting Cloud and committed suicide in jail the day before he was to be sentenced.

Acosta committed suicide in jail before he could be brought to trial. Haskew negotiated a plea agreement in which he testified against Gilford and Antone in return for a 35-year prison sentence.

Asked how he wanted to be remembered, Antone said, ‘My relatives will know how to remember me — as a loving person. I never hurt anybody. I’ll sleep fine tonight. I feel good about my life.’

Antone has spent his time on death row reading books on metaphysics and the occult, and said ‘I have no fear of death. I want to get it over with and go on to the next’ life.

But he said he was concerned the 2,300-volt jolt from the electric chair will expel his ‘astral counterpart’ abruptly from his body, rather than gradually as he believes necessary.

At the Tampa hearing, McCoun contended he had additional new evidence which would warrant an evidentiary hearing and said he had been ineffective in his legal assistance when he took over the appeal of Antone’s conviction

‘I was a volunteer counsel and I didn’t have sufficient time to go out an find witnesses who might come in and testify,’ McCoun said of the sentencing phase do the trial.

‘I had never had any contact with Mr. Antone until I went into that hearing. I was ineffective in a legal sense because of the inablility to find witnesses. I failed Mr. Antone

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1984/01/23/Anthony-Antone-Floridas-oldest-condemned-prisoner-prepared-calmly-for/9433443682000/

Johnny Taylor Louisiana Execution

Johnny Taylor was executed by the State of Louisiana for the murder of a man during a robbery. According to court documents Johnny Taylor was responding to a car for sale ad when he would attack and stab the man to death before stuffing his body in the trunk. Johnny Taylor would alter be arrested while driving the victims car. Johnny Taylor would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Johnny Taylor would be executed by way of the electric chair on February 29, 1984

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Johnny Taylor Jr., convicted of stabbing a man to death in 1980, was executed in Louisiana’s electric chair early today, becoming the second prisoner to be put to death in the state in less than three months.

Mr. Taylor, 30 years old, of Pritchard, Ala., was pronounced dead at 12:16 A.M., central standard time, by Dr. Alfred Gould, said Warden Ross Maggio Jr.

In a lengthy last statement, Mr. Taylor said he ”didn’t feel any remorse” and ended it by saying, ”That’s it. Let’s go.”

His last-minute appeals were turned down Tuesday by Gov. David C. Treen and the United States Supreme Court. The Court voted 6 to 2 to deny his appeal.

The first surge of 2,000 volts of electricity was administered at 12:10 A.M. and lasted for 10 seconds, followed by a 20-second jolt of 500 volts. The process was then repeated.

Taylor was found guilty of murdering David Vogler on Feb. 8, 1980, in Kenner, a New Orleans suburb.

He had been stabbed repeatedly and his body was stuffed in the trunk of his car.

The Louisiana chapter of Amnesty International assembled about 20 people for a 30-minute protest late Tuesday next to the Capitol.

The protesters included Jerry and Karen Williams, the brother and sister- in-law of Robert Wayne Williams, who was executed here on Dec. 14.

James Autry Texas Execution

James Autry was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of a store clerk during a robbery. According to court documents James Autry would rob a convenience store and in the process shoot and kill Shirley Drouet. James Autry would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. James Autry would be executed by lethal injection on March 14 1984

James Autry More News

Condemned killer James Autry was executed early this morning in the same Huntsville prison death chamber where he narrowly escaped death five months ago.

James Autry, sentenced to die for the 1980 murder of a convenience store clerk, had his last hope for a second reprieve dashed when Texas Gov. Mark White late last night refused to intervene. Shortly after, Autry was taken to the death chamber and injected with sodium thiopental, potassium chloride and pavulon, a muscle relaxant. He was pronounced dead at 12:40 a.m. CST.

Last October Autry was less than 30 minutes from death, strapped to a gurney with intravenous tubes dripping a saline solution into his veins in preparation for the lethal injection, when Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White granted a stay.

It was an 11th-hour reprieve for Autry, 29, as White said the high court should first rule on the “proportionality” issue–whether Autry’s sentence was in line with those given others for similar crimes. On Jan. 23 the court ruled, 7 to 2, that death-row inmates are not entitled to a special appeals court review on the issue, and Autry’s execution was rescheduled.

Yesterday the Supreme Court refused, again 7 to 2, to hear an appeal of Autry’s case, and a federal court refused to order that his execution be televised. White was the last stop, but he, too, refused to intervene, saying the case had been thoroughly reviewed by 14 judicial panels.

The narrowness of Autry’s October escape highlighted the role of legal tenacity in staving off executions, but the rescheduling of his execution was a reminder that appeals can and do run out.

Autry was the 14th man executed in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, while the death-row population has swelled to more than 1,200. In recent years the Supreme Court has expressed impatience with drawn-out, scattershot appeals in death penalty cases.

Autry’s brush with execution in October led to another effort by his lawyers to try to save him. ACLU attorney Stefan Presser argued in a petition to the Supreme Court last week that Autry had been subjected to “cruel and unusual punishment” during his first trip to the death chamber because officials strapped him to the gurney and inserted the intravenous tubes nearly an hour before his scheduled execution time, and because they then delayed telling Autry of the stay for 45 minutes. But the high court refused to hear the case Tuesday afternoon.

Autry’s lawyers also filed suit Monday in U.S. District Court in Texas, arguing that the execution should be stayed because the Texas Board of Corrections had denied Autry’s request that it be televised. But a District Court judge turned down this request.

“I want my execution on TV because it may help someone else from being put on death row and maybe someone will see my execution and decide the death penalty isn’t right,” Autry said in an affidavit filed with the suit.

But the board voted unanimously against televising his or other deaths. “I think it is in terribly bad taste. It shouldn’t be in people’s living rooms,” said Board Chairman Robert Gunn.

“They allow printed media but not electronic media to witness executions because they are trying to portray the death penalty in the least graphic way,” countered Presser.

After his last-minute reprieve in October, Autry told reporters that he had resigned himself to dying and said he “almost had a heart attack” as he lay connected to intravenous needles awaiting death.

Autry, an oil field roughnenck with a long criminal record, was condemned in 1980 for slaying Port Arthur convenience store clerk Shirley Drouet, 43, a mother of five who was shot between the eyes when she tried to collect $2.70 for a six-pack of beer. A customer in the store also was fatally shot and another person severely injured.

Autry maintained that his companion, John Sandifer, was responsible. Both were indicted for capital murder, but Sandifer plea bargained in a different case and received a seven-year sentence. He has since been paroled. Autry was offered a plea bargain, but turned it down and was convicted, primarily on Sandifer’s testimony.

Autry, the second person to be executed in Texas in 18 years (the other, convicted murderer Charlie Brooks Jr., 40, was executed by injection at Huntsville on Dec. 7, 1982), is the first of four death-row inmates scheduled to die in the state this month.

Texas has more than 170 people on death row.

Autry is not the only death-row inmate whose time may have run out this week. In North Carolina, James W. Hutchins is scheduled to die Friday morning for the 1979 shotgun slaying of three police officers. Hutchins came within 40 minutes of execution in January before the Supreme Court intervened.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1984/03/14/texas-murderer-is-executed-by-injection/ad12a121-09f4-47c4-b7ad-f917044ff04c/