Texas executes Ronnie Threadgill

Ronnie Threadgill

HUNTSVILLE (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court refused to halt the scheduled execution of a Texas man, clearing the way for his punishment Tuesday evening for the carjack-slaying of a teenager 12 years ago.

"To my loved ones and my dear friends, I love y'all and appreciate y'all for being there," Threadgill said. "I am going to a better place. To all the guys back on the row, keep your heads up, keep fighting. I'm ready. Let's go."

He nodded to a female friend standing a few feet away behind a window, then smiled broadly, showing off a mouthful of gold teeth. As the lethal dose of pentobarbital began taking effect, he took several deep breaths, then began snoring loudly. Within a few seconds, the sounds stopped.

He was pronounced dead 25 minutes later, at 6:39 p.m. CDT. It was the third execution in Texas this year.

Attorneys for Ronnie Threadgill, 40, argued his case deserved review because he had deficient legal help during his 2002 capital murder trial when he was sentenced to die for the killing of 17-year-old Dexter McDonald. The appeal argued he would not have received a death sentence if he had better legal representation, and asked his case be returned to a lower court.

The high court’s rejection came in a brief order less than an hour before Threadgill’s scheduled lethal injection.

Threadgill, who was 29 when he stood trial in 2002, had spent much of the previous decade locked up. Court records showed he had felony convictions for cocaine possession and burglary and numerous misdemeanor convictions. Three months before the fatal carjacking, he was released on mandatory supervision, a form of parole.

"All the extraneous facts in the case made him look so damn culpable, the jury found him guilty," Rob Dunn, one of his trial attorneys, recalled last week. "He'd had a long criminal history."

A clinical psychologist testifying for the defense said that Threadgill was chemically dependent and came from a family with a history of substance abuse.

Brandt argued in her Supreme Court appeal that jurors weren't given an accurate picture of Threadgill's abusive and tumultuous childhood. She also said the lawyers who represented Threadgill in the early stages of his appeals failed to properly document the environment in which grew up.

State attorneys told the justices that his legal help throughout had been proper and competent and his appeal was "nothing more than a meritless attempt to postpone his execution," according to Stephen Hoffman, an assistant Texas attorney general.

Witnesses said McDonald was with two friends leaving the club in Mustang in the early morning hours of April 15, 2001. He was in the back seat when a gunman with a scarf covering his face jumped into the car and opened fire. A passenger in the front seat bailed out and the car sped off.

A short distance away, the carjacker pulled the mortally wounded McDonald from the back seat and left him on the ground. The driver skidded into a ditch to end a police chase, then ran on foot toward some tractor trailers at a service station.

That's where officers found Threadgill under the truck. A bandana identified as his was stuffed under the truck trailer frame. Besides blood evidence, investigators found Threadgill's fingerprints on a door of the hijacked vehicle.

At least 10 other Texas prisoners have executions scheduled in the coming months, including one set to die next week.

Threadgill becomes the 3rd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas and the 495th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982.

Threadgill becomes the 256th condemned inmate to be put to death in Texas since Rick Perry became governor in 2001.

Threadgill becomes the 8th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1328th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977. 

Sources: AP, Rick Halperin , April 16, 2013