Texas executes Cleve Foster

Cleve Foster

Texas prison officials gave Cleve Foster a lethal injection at 6:43 p.m. CDT Tuesday, just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to postpone his punishment for a fourth time.

Foster and his roommate, Sheldon Ward, were convicted of the 2002 murder in Fort Worth of Nyanuer "Mary" Pal. Police found the body of Pal, who had been shot, in the woods. DNA evidence in Pal's body later connected Foster and Ward to the crime. Both men were sentenced to death.

Ward died in prison in May 2010. While he was on death row, Foster's lawyers said, Ward wrote a note and also told others that Foster was not involved in the murder and that he had acted alone.

In his pleas, Foster argues that Ward's statements prove his innocence. He also argues that he received ineffective legal assistance since his lawyers did not present key evidence to the jury, including a note Ward wrote at the time of the crime taking sole blame for the murder. The lawyers were also ineffective, he argues, because they did not use a blood-spatter expert to dispute the state's theory that Foster and Ward murdered the victim in one location and carried her body to another.

The state, in a response filed Monday with the U.S. Supreme Court by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, said, "Foster advances no compelling reason in this case, and none exists."

Ward's confessions, the state contends, were "inconsistent and incompatible" with one another, containing differing details. And, the state argues, the jury's decision to convict Foster would not have changed with additional testimony about where the victim died.

Foster's 1st execution date, Jan. 11, 2011, was stayed just 10 minutes before he was scheduled to undergo lethal injection. Before his 2nd execution date - April 5, 2011 - Foster and fellow death row inmate Humberto Leal filed a civil lawsuit challenging Texas' decision to change its lethal injection protocol from 3 drugs to 1. The Texas Supreme Court eventually dismissed that lawsuit, but the U.S. Supreme Court stayed Foster's execution again. Foster's execution was scheduled a 3rd time for Sept. 20, 2011, but the high court stayed that as well.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to stop Foster's scheduled execution.

Foster has always maintained his innocence, but didn't mention that as he was executed. Instead, according to The Associated Press, he expressed love for his family and God before the drugs took effect, he began snoring and then he stopped breathing.

"When I close my eyes, I'll be with the father," he said. "God is everything. He's my life. Tonight I'll be with him."

He turned to relatives of his victims and said, "I don't know what you're going to be feeling tonight. I pray we'll all meet in Heaven."

Foster becomes the 9th condemned individual to be put to death this year in Texas and the 486th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982. Foster becomes the 247th condemned inmate to be put to death in Texas since Rick Perry became Governor in 2001.

Foster becomes the 30th condemned individual to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1307th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

Source: AP, Rick Halperin, ABC News, Sept. 25, 2012

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