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| Thomas Kemp |
Arizona has executed a death-row inmate convicted of killing a Tucson college student after robbing him of $200 -- the state's third execution this year.
The death Wednesday of 63-year-old Thomas Arnold Kemp puts Arizona on pace to match its busiest year for executions, and makes it one of the nation's busiest death-penalty states.
Kemp was sentenced to death for kidnapping 25-year-old Hector Soto Juarez from outside Juarez's Tucson apartment on July 11, 1992, and robbing him before taking him into the desert near Marana and shooting him twice in the head.
Arizona executed Robert Henry Moormann on Feb. 29 and Robert Charles Towery on March 8.
Another inmate, Samuel Villegas Lopez, is scheduled to be executed on May 16 for the rape and murder of a Phoenix woman.
Kemp was sentenced to death in July 1993 for, along with an accomplice, snatching Hector Soto Juarez from outside his Tucson apartment, taking him to a mine northwest of the city, and forcing him to disrobe. Juarez was shot fatally in the head.
The former trailer park maintenance man has consistently showed no remorse about the killing, refusing to attend a hearing this month by the Arizona Board of Execution Clemency. He branded the proceeding a "dog and pony show."
At his 1993 sentencing, Kemp said his only regret was not killing an accomplice and unleashed a tirade against Mexican immigrants and the legal system, saying his victim was "beneath my contempt."
"If more of them wound up dead, the rest of them would soon learn to stay in Mexico, where they belong," Kemp said at his sentencing, according to court documents. "I spit on the law and all those who serve it.
According to court testimony, Kemp and his partner, Jeffrey Logan, set the crimes in motion by buying a .380 semiautomatic handgun from a pawn shop days before the abduction. Late on July 11, 1992, the men took Juarez from the apartment parking lot.
At midnight, the two withdrew $200 with Juarez's bank card and drove him to the Silverbell Mine area. Kemp walked his victim 50 to 70 feet from the vehicle, made him take off his clothes and then shot him twice, testimony showed.
Kemp and Logan drove to Flagstaff, Arizona, where they sold their now repainted vehicle and bought another gun. The two then kidnapped a couple and forced them to drive to Durango, Colorado, where the husband and wife were sexually assaulted.
The couple escaped after driving to Denver, and Kemp and Logan soon separated. Logan was arrested after contacting Tucson police about the Juarez murder. Kemp was taken into custody at a homeless shelter in Tucson.
Kemp was convicted of first-degree murder, kidnapping and armed robbery.
Kemp was defiant to the end.
"I regret nothing," he said as his last words.
Then he trembled as the drugs coursed through his veins, took some deep breaths and went still.
His time of death was 10:08 a.m.
Kemp becomes the 3rd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Arizona and the 31st overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1992.
Kemp becomes the 16th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1293rd overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.
Sources: AP, Reuters, Rick Halperin, April 25, 2012
Thomas Arnold Kemp's Execution Disturbs His Attorney Tim Gabrielsen
FLORENCE, Ariz. -- The attorney for an Arizona death-row inmate executed Wednesday said he was "very disturbed" after seeing his client shake for several seconds upon receiving his lethal injection, and he wants to find out if the man felt any unnecessary pain.
Kemp lay strapped to a table in the death chamber as he delivered his final words: "I regret nothing." He then nodded and smiled at his attorney, Tim Gabrielsen, looked at the ceiling and calmly waited.
As the one-drug execution began, Kemp's eyes closed and his body visibly shook for several seconds before he went quiet and appeared to fall asleep with a few deep breaths.
Gabrielsen later told The Associated Press he was concerned about his client's shaking and was considering what action could be taken to determine if Kemp experienced pain, including an autopsy by an independent pathologist.
"It was unmistakable," said Gabrielsen, who has witnessed one other execution. "He was shaking very violently. We're very disturbed by that."
In the past nine Arizona executions attended by the AP since 2007, no other inmates shook as they were given a lethal injection.
Kemp was executed using one drug, pentobarbital. Most states use a three-drug process and "the second drug would mask any movement or pain," said Richard Deiter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C.
Jonathan Groner, an Ohio State University surgeon who has studied lethal injection extensively, said high doses of pentobarbital are associated with seizures, and that may have caused Kemp's shaking.
"The problem is the people that give it are not physicians. They try to push it as fast as possible," Groner said. "It's nothing anyone would do in a hospital or medical center. It's not a very good way to kill people."
Source: Huffington Post, April 25, 2012
