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U.S. | Execution by nitrogen hypoxia doesn’t seem headed for widespread adoption as bills fall short and nitrogen producers object

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The day after Alabama carried out the first-known US execution using nitrogen gas, its attorney general sent a clear message to death penalty states that might want to follow suit: “Alabama has done it, and now so can you.” Indeed, in the weeks immediately following the January execution of Kenneth Smith, it appeared a handful of states were listening, introducing bills that would adopt the method known as nitrogen hypoxia or a similar one. Officials behind each framed the legislation as an alternative method that could help resume executions where they had long been stalled.

Texas | Execution date set for man convicted of brutally murdering 3-month-old son

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Travis Mullis was found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to death in 2011, three years after sexually assaulting, choking and stomping to death 3-month-old Alijah Mullis in Galveston.

An execution date was set for a Brazoria County man convicted of brutally stomping his infant son to death in 2011.

37-year-old Travis James Mullis will be executed on Sept. 24 in Huntsville, Judge Jeth Jones announced on Wednesday. Immediately following a trial to determine his death date, Mullis was transported to the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, where death row inmates await their pending fates.

On Sept. 24, Mullis will be transported to the Huntsville Unit, where he will be put to death by lethal injection.

Mullis had been found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to death in 2011, three years after he reportedly sexually assaulted and choked 3-month-old Alijah Mullis before crushing his skull and throwing the infant’s lifeless body onto a remote berm along the Galveston seawall.

During the court hearing on Wednesday, he was asked if there was any objection to the sentencing, but Mullis and his defense were silent, according to court documents.

Peter Walker, Mullis’ defense attorney said the death date sentence was “troublesome” because of his past with mental illness. The trial also revealed the man was sexually abused as a child, according to the Galveston County Daily News.

Walker said the case was unique because there has been no constitutional review regarding his conviction and sentence, according to The Daily News.

The last person convicted in Galveston County to face the death penalty was Robert Shields, who was put to death in 2005 for beating and killing a Friendswood woman after breaking into her home.

In an interview, Shields said he didn’t kill Paula Stiner, but admitted to being in her home when she died. Shields declined to make a final statement before his death at 6:15 p.m., according to the Texas Execution Information Center.

Source: houstonpublicmedia.org, Staff, May 23, 2024

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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde



Location: Galveston, TX, USA
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