Texas executes Donald Newbury

Donald Newbury

Already a three-time felon with a violent history, the convicted robber Donald Newbury was serving a 99-year prison term when he joined six fellow convicts in Texas’s biggest prison break ever in 2000.

Newbury was executed Wednesday for the shooting death of a suburban Dallas police officer during a sporting-goods store robbery the escaped fugitives carried out while at large.

Newbury was pronounced dead at 6:25 p.m., almost 30 minutes after the procedure began. His last words were "I love you all" after he read a proverb as his last statement.

As the drugs began to take effect, Irving PD and other police officers revved their motorcycles.

Newbury, 52, becomes the third Texas prisoner to be put to death this year, and also the third of the notorious “Texas 7” gang to be executed for the slaying of 29-year-old Irving officer Aubrey Hawkins.

His attorneys had asked the US Supreme Court to keep him from lethal injection, arguing that previous lawyers were deficient and courts did not provide adequate money for a defense expert to illustrate how Newbury’s abusive childhood influenced his violent behavior.

The Texas attorney general’s office, in opposing the appeal, said Newbury had been given court reviews and court-authorized money and “has not pointed to any facts” that would prove he was innocent.

Newbury was spared from lethal injection three years ago by a Supreme Court reprieve.

Evidence showed the gang led by George Rivas, who was serving 17 life-in-prison terms, overpowered workers on 13 December 2000 at the Connally Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, about 60 miles south of San Antonio.

Eleven days later, on Christmas Eve, and after robberies as far away as Houston, Hawkins was shot 11 times and run over with a stolen SUV when he interrupted the gang’s holdup of a sporting goods store. The fugitives got away with $70,000, 44 firearms, ammunition and winter clothing. They also took jewelry and wallets from store employees who were closing up for the evening.

They were hunted down a month later in Colorado where one of them, Larry Harper, killed himself rather than surrender.

According to court records, 12 loaded firearms were found in the Holiday Inn room in Colorado Springs where Newbury was arrested with escapee Joseph Garcia.

Newbury contended he didn’t shoot to kill Hawkins and pointed his gun far above the officer’s head.

Prison records show Newbury had dozens of disciplinary cases since arriving on death row in 2002. Most were defined as major, such as assaulting corrections officers, possessing weapons and contraband and creating disturbances. At least one was a riot case.

“He really likes coming across as the bad outlaw,” said Toby Shook, the former Dallas County assistant district attorney who prosecuted Newbury.

In a 2003 interview with The Associated Press, Newbury said he would still escape if he could do it all over again.

“I had 99 years,” he said, referring to his original sentence. “What did I have to lose?”

Gang leader Rivas, 41, was put to death three years ago. George Rodriguez, 45, was executed in 2008 after ordering all his appeals dropped.

Three remain on death row: Garcia, 43, Patrick Murphy Jr, 53, and Randy Halprin, 37.

Newbury becomes the 3rd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas and the 521st overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982. Newbury becomes the 3rd condemned inmate to be put to death since Greg Abbott became Governor of Texas last month.

Newbury becomes the 7th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1401st overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

Source: The Guardian, AP, Rick Halperin, February 4, 2015

Report an error, an omission: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com

Tennessee | Questions Raised About the Doctor Who Was Overseeing Tony Caruthers’ Execution

Mark Fowler, according to a deposition, had not placed a central line in a patient for more than a decade when he attempted to put one in Carruthers Around 11 a.m. Thursday morning in the execution chamber at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, a medical doctor stepped in and attempted to place a central IV line in Tony Carruthers’ chest. By that point, the prison staff had spent some 30 minutes trying unsuccessfully to insert a backup IV line that would allow them to proceed with the lethal injection. According to Carruthers’ attorney Maria DeLiberato, who was in the room, after asking a staff member to attempt inserting a line through Carruthers’ jugular vein, the doctor moved on to the central line, which is identified as the last resort in Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol .

Iran executes Esma Zarei in Ardabil Prison after she gave birth in custody

Hengaw – Saturday, May 23, 2026. Iranian authorities have executed Esma Zarei, a 28-year-old Turkish woman from Parsabad in Ardabil Province, who had previously been sentenced to death on charges of “premeditated murder” in connection with the killing of her husband. She is the sixth woman executed in Iran since the beginning of 2026. According to information received by Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Zarei was executed at dawn on Wednesday, May 20, 2026, in Ardabil Central Prison. She had been sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) after being convicted of her husband’s murder.

Iraq: German schoolgirl, 17, turned jihadi bride escapes death penalty and is jailed for six years

GERMAN Jihadi bride Linda Wenzel has been jailed for six years in Baghdad for her role as an Islamic enforcer with terror group ISIS. Wenzel, 17, who last year sobbed on TV “I have ruined my life,” could have faced the death penalty. German media reported that a German embassy representative in Iraq was in court yesterday to witness her sentencing. She received five years for joining IS and one year for entering Iraq illegally. Wenzel was found in the rubble of IS stronghold Mosul back in the summer of 2017. Charges were laid against her and three other German women captured with her. Schoolgirl Wenzel fled to Turkey then into Syria last year from her hometown of Pulsnitz in eastern Germany after being groomed online by a Chechen IS fighter who she married. He was killed in the savage fighting for Mosul while she was employed by the terror group enforcing the strict Islamic dress code on women in the city. She burst into tears after her capture and said s...

EU GSP+ Reform: Will Brussels Finally Enforce Its Own Conditions on Pakistan?

The EU has tightened the rules governing GSP+ trade preferences, but Pakistan’s record raises a harder question: whether Brussels is prepared to suspend market access when a major beneficiary fails to demonstrate sustained compliance with human rights, labour and governance obligations. The European Union has formally adopted revised rules for its Generalised Scheme of Preferences, strengthening the conditions attached to preferential market access for developing countries. The new framework will apply from 1 January 2027 and is intended to tighten monitoring, widen the list of international conventions, and make suspension of benefits easier in cases of serious violations.

20 Minutes to Death: Witness to the Last Execution in France

The following document is a firsthand account of the final moments of Hamida Djandoubi, a convicted murderer executed by guillotine at Marseille’s Baumettes Prison on September 10, 1977. The record—dated September 9—was written by Monique Mabelly, a judge appointed by the state to witness the proceedings. Djandoubi’s execution would ultimately be the last carried out in France before capital punishment was abolished in 1981. At the time, President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing—who had publicly voiced his "deep aversion to the death penalty" prior to his election—rejected Djandoubi’s appeal for clemency. Choosing to let "justice take its course," the President allowed the execution to proceed, just as he had in two previous cases during his term: Christian Ranucci , executed on July 28, 1976 and Jérôme Carrein , executed on June 23, 1977. Hamida Djandoubi , a Tunisian national, was sentenced to death for killing his former lover, Elisabeth Bousquet. He was execu...

China Executed 2,400 People in 2013, Dui Hua

A Chinese police officer lights a last cigarette for an inmate moments before his execution. The Dui Hua Foundation estimates that China executed approximately 2,400 people in 2013 and will execute roughly the same number of people in 2014. Annual declines in executions recorded in recent years are likely to be offset in 2014 by the use of capital punishment in anti-terrorism campaigns in Xinjiang and the anti-corruption campaign nationwide. Dui Hua bases its 2013 estimate on data points published in Southern Weekly that are consistent with information provided to Dui Hua by a judicial official earlier this year. The mainland magazine reported that a former senior judge of the Supreme People's Court (SPC) stated at a seminar in July that the number of executions had reached 1/10 of the highest number recorded since 1979. In 1983 - the 1st year of the Strike Hard campaign during which the power to approve capital punishment was given to provincial high courts - 2...

Iran | Four 'Woman, Life, Freedom' Protesters Sentenced to Hang by 'Death Judge' in Sham Trial

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); 25 May 2026: Milad Armoun, Navid Najaran, Seyed Mohammad Mehdi Hosseini and Mehdi Imani, four “Woman, Life, Freedom” protesters, were sentenced to death by “Death Judge” Salavati after a grossly unfair trial. Defence counsel representing the defendants in what became known as the “Ekbatan case” have detailed the severe procedural and substantive flaws that violated fundamental due process rights and undermined the legitimacy of the rulings issued by Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court. News of the judgement comes just days after the Criminal Court acquitted the defendants of murder charges.

Florida: The Daily Routine of Death Row Inmates

The breakfast carts rattle through the concrete prison at about 5:30 am and as they approach Death Row the first sounds of morning repeat the last sounds of night - remote controlled locks clanging open and clunking closed, electric gates whirring, heavy metal doors crashing shut, voices wailing, klaxons blaring. A maximum security prison has no soft or delicate sounds. At the end of each corridor of death row cells a guard opens a heavy door of steel bars and a prison trusty pushes a breakfast cart inside. The door closes behind him and when it locks a second door opens and admits the trusty to the wing. He steers his cart along the wing stopping at each cell to pass a tray of powdered eggs and lukewarm grits through a small slot on the bars. Food is prepared by prison staff and transported in insulated carts to the cells. The food carts are full of cockroaches, the food is often undercooked or just rotten and is served on Styrofoam plates with a plastic "spork" - fork/spoon...

New Mississippi billboard warns criminals: ‘Firing squad is legal’

DESOTO COUNTY, Miss. (WREG) — A billboard standing on Interstate 55 southbound as you cross the Tennessee state line and enter Mississippi from Memphis is sending a grim message to those coming into the state. DeSoto County District Attorney Matthew Barton recently announced the new billboard campaign, which features the sign reading, “WELCOME TO MISSISSIPPI. WHERE THE FIRING SQUAD IS LEGAL. THINK TWICE.” It references Mississippi’s law permitting execution by firing squad under certain circumstances for inmates sentenced to death. Barton says this campaign is aimed at deterring violent crime and sends a direct message to criminals entering Mississippi.

Arizona executes Leroy McGill

Arizona executes inmate who set couple on fire in 'horrific attack' Arizona has executed Leroy McGill for setting 21-year-old Charles Perez and his 24-year-old girlfriend on fire. Perez died the next day and Perez survived with severe burn injuries. Arizona has executed a death row inmate for setting 2 people on fire more than 20 years ago, killing 1 of them and changing the other's life forever. The state executed Leroy McGill, 63, by lethal injection on Wednesday, May 20, for the 2002 murder of 21-year-old Charles Perez. McGill set Perez and his girlfriend on fire after they accused him of theft, court records say. Perez died of his injuries the next day while his girlfriend survived with severe burns.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog