Texas executes Arturo Diaz

Arturo Diaz

A Texas man who stabbed another man to death when he failed to pay back a $100 debt to an exotic dancer was executed on Thursday.

The execution of Arturo Diaz by lethal injection took place at 6:13 p.m. CT in Huntsville. It is the 13th execution this year in Texas and the 27th in the United States.

Diaz smiled and blew a kiss to several witnesses watching through a window, including his mother and grandmother.

He then turned to the father of his victim, watching through an adjacent window to the death chamber. "I hope this can bring some relief for you and your family," he told him.

Diaz's reaction to the drug was similar to other Texas inmates who have been executed with pentobarbital. He took several deep breaths, began snoring and ceased movement in less than a minute.

He was pronounced dead 17 minutes later, at 6:30 p.m. CDT.

Diaz, 37, was convicted of killing Michael Ryan Nichols in April 1999 in McAllen near the Mexican border, after the 2 spent a night partying with an exotic dancer and friends, according to an account of the incident by the Texas Attorney General's Office.

During the course of the evening, Nichols borrowed $100 from the dancer, who returned the following night to collect her money, the account said.

When Nichols gave her only $50, Diaz arrived with an accomplice, Joe Cordova, who held Nichols while Diaz stabbed him, the account said.

A witness who helped the 2 men throw away a trash bag that contained Nichols' bloody clothes said he heard them talking about a murder Diaz had committed with Cordova's help.

A psychologist testified during Diaz's trial that he had suffered head trauma as a result of being knocked unconscious during fights and having been in a car accident, all of which could "impair his ability to control and regulate his judgment and perceive reality," according to the official account.

The psychologist also testified that Diaz has a low-average intelligence, the verbal ability of an 11-year-old, and a history of anti-social behavior as a child, according to the account.

Diaz was sentenced to death, and Cordova to life in prison, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice website.

Diaz was executed using the drug pentobarbital. In August, Texas officials said the state's supply of the drug would run out this month.

But asked this week about how much pentobarbital the state has on hand, a spokesman would only say that the Texas prison system would be using the drug for the foreseeable future.

"We have not changed our current execution protocol and have no immediate plans to do so," said Jason Clark, spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Clark did not explain what had changed since August.

Texas switched to pentobarbital, a barbiturate that is the drug of choice for physician-assisted suicide in Europe, when the state had to change drugs after the maker of sodium thiopental, Hospira Inc, stopped manufacturing it.

Denmark's Lundbeck LLC, which makes pentobarbital, has objected to its use in executions, leaving it in short supply as well.

Several states have reported running low on pentobarbital and some have halted executions while they seek access or resolve other lethal injection issues, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

A request from Diaz to stay the execution was denied on Wednesday by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, the Texas attorney general's office said.

Diaz's attorney, James Terry Jr., focused his court appeals to block the punishment on what he argued was previous shoddy legal help at Diaz's trial and early in the appeals process, rather than the drug issue.

In his appeals, Terry argued recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings should allow him to raise previously unsuccessful challenges that Diaz's trial lawyers were deficient for not fully explaining a plea deal offered by Hidalgo County prosecutors. He also argued that attorneys never reached out to Diaz's relatives to testify about his unstable childhood.

Court records show Diaz's relatives didn't want to testify and Diaz didn't want them to testify. Terry also contended Diaz's initial appeals attorney was equally deficient.

Arturo Diaz, who was tonight executed by the State of Texas, met his 8-month-old grandson for the first time Tuesday.

The two encountered each other through the plexiglass of a visitation booth on death row in Livingston, as depicted in this snapshot (right).

Diaz becomes the 13th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas and the 505th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982. Diaz becomes the 266th condemned inmate to be put to death in Texas since Rick Perry became governor in 2001.

Diaz becomes the 27th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1347th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

Sources: Reuters, AP, Execution Watch, Rick Halperin, September 26, 2013

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