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| John Henry |
STARKE, FL (AP) - Florida has executed a Tampa area man who killed his wife and her 5-year-old son in 1985.
It is the third U.S. execution in less than 24 hours since a botched April lethal injection in Oklahoma.
The governor's office says John Ruthell Henry was pronounced dead at 7:43 p.m. Wednesday.
The 63-year-old was convicted and sentenced to death for fatally stabbing his wife, Suzanne Henry.
He also was convicted of fatally stabbing Suzanne Henry's 5-year-old son hours after the woman's murder.
Henry previously had pleaded no contest to second-degree murder for stabbing his common-law wife, Patricia Roddy, in 1976. He served less than eight years and was released in 1983.
Wednesday, the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Henry's pleas to delay the execution. His attorney argued he had a low I.Q., was mentally disabled and therefore should not be put to death under the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Henry refused his last meal, and was described by a prison official as being calm hours before his death.
Earlier in the day, Henry was visited by his sister, niece and daughter, as
well a Catholic spiritual adviser, said DOC spokeswoman Jessica Cary.
He was injected with midazolam hydrochloride, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride. Just before his execution, Henry asked for forgiveness and apologized for what
he'd done.
'I can't undo what I've done. If I could, I would. I ask for your forgiveness
if you can find it in your heart,' he said.
Henry's was be the 13th execution in Florida since April 2013, and the 18th
since Republican Gov. Rick Scott took office in 2011.
Scott on Tuesday brushed aside questions about the state's execution
procedures, saying he has to 'uphold the laws of the land.'
When asked directly if he had discussed with the Department of Corrections what
happened in Oklahoma and whether any changes were needed in Florida, Scott
would only say: 'I focus on making sure that we do things the right way here.'
During Henry's trial, prosecutors said the unemployed bricklayer went to
Suzanne Henry's home 3 days before Christmas of 1985 to talk about buying a
gift for the boy, who was Suzanne's son from a prior relationship. They fought
over Henry living with another woman and he stabbed her 13 times in the neck
and face.
Prosecutors said Henry then took the boy and drove around for 9 hours,
sometimes smoking crack cocaine, before stabbing him 5 times in the neck.
Hours later, Henry told a detective, he found himself wandering a field. He
later told therapists he had killed the child to reunite him with his mother.
Henry tried to use an insanity defense for killing his wife.
Psychiatrists at the trial testified that Henry had a low IQ, suffered from
chronic paranoia and smoked crack. He told them he had intended to commit
suicide after killing the boy but said he was unable to go through with it.
In an appeal the Florida Supreme Court rejected last week, attorney Baya
Harrison III wrote that Henry's 'abhorrent childhood, extensive personal and
family mental health history, poor social adjustment, and lack of rational
thinking and reasoning skills so impaired his adaptive functioning that he was
actually performing at the level of a person with an IQ of 70.'
In May, a panel of mental health experts said Henry doesn't suffer from mental
illness or an intellectual disability and that he understands "the nature and
effect of the death penalty and why it is to be imposed on him," according to
court records.
Henry becomes the 6th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Florida
and the 87th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1979. Only
Texas (515), Oklahoma (111), and Virginia (110) have executed more inmates
since the death penalty was re-legalized in the USA on July 2, 1976.
Henry becomes the 23rd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA
and the 1382nd overall since the USA resumed executions on January 17, 1977.
Sources: AP, Agencies, Rick Halperin, June 18, 2014
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