Missouri executes David Hosier

David Hosier, who maintained innocence in 2009 murders of Angela and Rodney Gilpin, pronounced dead at 6.11pm

Missouri executed a man on death row on Tuesday night, the state’s second lethal injection carried out this year.

David Hosier, 69, was pronounced dead at 6.11pm following a single-dose injection of the sedative pentobarbital at the state prison in Bonne Terre, said Missouri corrections department spokeswoman Karen Pojmann via text message.

Hosier has maintained his innocence in the 2009 murders of a couple, Angela and Rodney Gilpin, and two Missouri Congress members called for the execution to be halted earlier this week.

“I’ve been able to speak the truth of my innocence,” Hosier said in a written statement before his execution, NBC News reported. “I’ve been able to reminisce with family and friends new and old. I’ve been able to learn to be the fullest version of me … I leave you all with love.”

Hosier has acknowledged that he had an affair with Angela Gilpin, telling the Associated Press that she ended the relationship and got back together with her husband. The couple was fatally shot near the doorway of their apartment in Jefferson City, the state capital, in September 2009.

Police said Hosier had made comments threatening to kill Angela Gilpin prior to the shooting and that authorities later found in the woman’s purse an application for a protective order that referenced fears Hosier could harm her and her husband.

Hosier was arrested in Oklahoma and had weapons in his car, though ballistic tests on the weapons were inconclusive.

Lawyers for Hosier focused on the defendant’s traumatic childhood in his clemency petition, which Missouri governor Mike Parson rejected on Monday. The petition noted that Hosier’s father, Glen Hosier, was murdered when he was 16 years old. His father was a detective sergeant with the Indiana state police and was fatally shot on the job by a man he was trying to arrest.

Hosier previously served in the US Navy and worked as a firefighter and EMT. His lawyers noted that prosecutors had at one point offered a plea deal for life in prison without parole: “It seems that if the prosecutor thought such a sentence was appropriate given all the facts, such a sentence should now be seriously considered,” the clemency petition said.

In recent interviews with the AP and NBC News, Hosier has criticized his lawyers for focusing on his childhood, saying he had asked them to prioritize his innocence claim, including the lack of DNA evidence at the crime scene: “I will maintain that ’till the day they stick a needle in my arm and kill me. I’ll still be innocent, even though I’m dead,” he told the news station.

Larry Komp, one of Hosier’s federal public defenders, criticized the governor’s decision to allow the execution to move forward, saying in a statement: “It sends the wrong message to execute and marginalize a veteran and an individual harmed by the tragedy of his father being killed in the line of duty, which spun his life into a different direction. The context of his life history with the paucity of evidence related to his guilt makes this a compounding of tragedies, nothing is gained by killing him.”

The Republican governor, a former sheriff, has overseen ten executions since 2018. In a statement on Monday, Parson said Hosier “displays no remorse for his senseless violence”, adding: “For these heinous acts, Hosier earned maximum punishment under the law.”

The execution follows the widely criticized lethal injection of Brian Dorsey in Missouri in April. Dorsey was sentenced to death for murdering his cousin and her husband in 2006, but his clemency petition was supported by more than 70 current and former prison staff, Republican lawmakers, jurors and an appeals judge who had upheld the death sentence. That judge said he regretted his decision.

A total of 24 people were executed in the US last year, with capital punishments carried out in Texas, Florida, Missouri, Oklahoma and Alabama. A Gallup poll last year found that half of Americans now believe the death penalty is carried out unfairly in the US.

Source: The Guardian, Sam Levin, The Associated Press, June 12, 2024

_____________________________________________________________________

Twitter/X | Facebook | Telegram | Contact Us

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

— Oscar Wilde

South Carolina | Inmate who believes he’s died repeatedly can’t be executed, judge rules

SPARTANBURG — A 59-year-old man sentenced to death for killing a state trooper in Greenville County in 2000 can’t be executed because of a mental illness that’s left him incoherent and believing he’s immortal, a Circuit Court judge has ruled. John Richard Wood is the first condemned inmate in South Carolina found not competent to be executed since the state restarted capital punishment in September 2024. The seven executions since then include three men who chose to die by firing squad — the latest in November. Wood, convicted 24 years ago, was among death row inmates in line to receive a death warrant after exhausting their regular appeals.

Idaho eyes restart of death row executions as firing squad draws near

BOISE, Idaho — Idaho’s prison system has nearly completed execution chamber upgrades to carry out the death penalty by firing squad as the state’s lead method and will have a team of riflemen ready to go by the time a state law takes effect this summer. As part of the transition, the Idaho Department of Correction hopes to limit participation by its officers as the shooting of condemned people in prison to death is prioritized over lethal injection. Toward that effort, prisoner leadership sought to implement a push-button technology to avoid needing IDOC workers to pull the triggers.

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 | Man sentenced to death for murder executed in Yunnan

Tian Yongming, who was initially sentenced for a series of violent crimes and then had his sentence changed to death early this year, has been executed in Yunnan province following approval from China's top court. The execution was carried out by the Intermediate People's Court in Yuxi, Yunnan, on Tuesday, with local prosecutors supervising the process. Before the execution, Tian was allowed to meet with his family members. The case dates back to September 1996, when Tian was sentenced to nine years in prison for the rape and attempted murder of his sister-in-law. After his release on July 15, 2002, he plotted revenge against the woman. On the night of Nov 13, 2002, he broke into her home armed with a knife.

South Dakota | Latest appeal from state's lone death row inmate denied

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit has rejected the latest appeal from Briley Piper, the only person on death row in South Dakota. In March 2000, Briley Piper, along with co-defendants Elijah Page and Darrell Hoadley, conspired to burglarize the Lawrence County home of 19-year-old Chester Poage before abducting and murdering him by beating, stabbing, and stoning in a remote area. Piper was subsequently arrested, convicted of murder, and sentenced to death, while his accomplices received either a death sentence—carried out against Page in 2007—or a sentence of life imprisonment without parole.

Iran to execute first woman linked to mass protests after ‘forced confessions’

Bita Hemmati and three others have been sentenced to death for 'collusion' and 'propaganda.' Advocates claim the charges are baseless, citing a secretive process and state-televised interrogations. Iranian authorities are preparing to execute Bita Hemmati, the first woman sentenced to death in connection with the mass protests in Tehran in late December and January, according to the US-based non-profit the Human Rights Activists News Agency. Judge Iman Afshari, of Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, sentenced Hemmati, her husband, Mohammadreza Majidi Asl, and Behrouz Zamaninezhad, and Kourosh Zamaninezhad to death on the charge of “operational action for the hostile government of the United States and hostile groups,” in addition to discretionary imprisonment period of five years on the charge of “assembly and collusion against national security.”

Texas | James Broadnax's appeals: US Supreme Court denies 2 claims, confession pending

Despite an 11th-hour confession from another man, James Broadnax is slated to be executed by the state of Texas later this week. Broadnax, 37, is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection April 30 in Huntsville. He was condemned by a Dallas County jury in 2009 for the deaths of Stephen Swan, 26, and Matthew Butler, 28, outside their Garland music studio. Broadnax and his cousin, Demarius Cummings, had set out to rob the men, but left with only $2 and a 1995 Ford, according to previous reporting from The Dallas Morning News.

Florida executes Chadwick Scott Willacy

STARKE, Fla. -- A Florida man who set his neighbor on fire after she returned from work to find him burglarizing her home was executed Tuesday evening. Chadwick Scott Willacy, 58, received a three-drug injection and was pronounced dead at 6:15 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke for the 1990 killing of Marlys Sather. It was Florida's fifth execution this year. The curtain to the execution chamber went up promptly at the scheduled 6 p.m. time, and the lethal injection got underway two minutes later, after Willacy made a brief statement.

Arizona | Man who murdered pastor crucifixion style requests plea deal after parents killed in plane crash

Adam Sheafe, the California man who admitted to killing a New River, Arizona, pastor in a crucifixion-style attack, has asked prosecutors to offer him a plea deal that would result in a natural life sentence rather than the death penalty he had previously sought. Advisory council attorneys representing Sheafe sent a formal plea offer to prosecutors this week, about two weeks after his father and stepmother died in a plane crash at Marana Airport on April 8, according to 12 News. Sheafe, 51, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of William Schonemann, 76, pastor of New River Bible Church, who was found dead inside his home last April.

Florida executes James Ernest Hitchcock

STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida man convicted of beating and choking his brother’s 13-year-old stepdaughter to death nearly 50 years ago was executed Thursday evening. James Ernest Hitchcock, 70, was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. following a lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was convicted of the July 1976 killing of Cynthia Driggers. The curtain to the death chamber opened promptly at the 6 p.m. execution time. Hitchcock’s entire body was covered in a sheet up to his head. He stared at the ceiling as the team warden made a call, then gave his final statement.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog