PARCHMAN, Miss. -- A Mississippi man was put to death Wednesday evening for killing two men in a December 1995 robbery spree after the courts declined to stop the execution based on arguments that the inmate was mentally ill at the time.

Edwin Hart Turner, 38, died at 7:21 p.m. EST after receiving a chemical injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, authorities said.

Turner was convicted of capital murder in the deaths of Eddie Brooks and Everett Curry, who were slain at two gas stations a few miles apart that were targeted by Turner and another armed friend in a spree that netted them about $400.

Brooks was shot to death first while working at one of the gas stations and Curry at the other while pumping gas when the pair went there next, toting rifles. Turner's accomplice testified against him and was sentenced to life in prison.

Wearing a red prison jumpsuit as he lay strapped on a gurney, Turner said, "No" when asked if he had a last statement. When the lethal chemicals began flowing, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath and appeared to fall asleep.

The sister and a cousin of victim Eddie Brooks watched the execution. The brother and son of his other victim, Everett Curry, also did.

One of Curry's other brothers read a family statement afterward.

"I don't think we will ever have complete closure because a void will always exist in our hearts," said Roy Curry, who did not watch the execution. "At least we will have some consolation in knowing that the person who committed this cowardly and senseless act is finally gone."

Turner had requested that none of his family watch the execution, though his attorney and a pastor were present.

There was little dispute that Turner killed the two men while robbing gas stations, then went home and had a meal of shrimp and cinnamon rolls before going to sleep.

But his lawyers had tried to block the execution in various state and federal courts based on the argument that Turner was mentally ill at the time of the crimes. The lawyers had hoped the U.S. Supreme Court would outlaw executions of the mentally ill as it has done with people considered mentally retarded.

The nation's highest court allowed the execution to go forward Wednesday when it rejected petitions to stop it. Earlier in the day, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant had refused to grant a reprieve, saying after a review of the case, "I have decided not to grant clemency for his violent acts."

Turner's lawyers had argued in the petition to the U.S. Supreme Court that he inherited a serious mental illness. They argued that his father is thought to have committed suicide by shooting a gun into a shed filled with dynamite and his grandmother and great-grandmother both spent time in the state mental hospital.

Turner's attorneys say he was severely disfigured during a suicide attempt at 18 by putting a rifle in his mouth and pulling the trigger. He had been released from a mental hospital just weeks before killing the two men, his lawyers said.

Attorney General Jim Hood has said recently that Turner's mental health claims had been "fully addressed."

Richard Bourke, director of the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center that represented Turner, said after the execution in an emailed statement that he lamented the "tragic and senseless" killings. He also said Mississippi's mental health care system failed Turner, describing him as "a seriously mentally ill and tortured man" with no criminal history before those slayings.

Bourke's statement added Mississippi was among a handful of states that provide the least protection for the seriously mentally ill in their criminal justice systems.

"This needs to change. At the very least, seriously mentally ill offenders whose illness contributed directly to their crimes should not be subjected to the death penalty," the statement added.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/09/edwin-hart-turner-executed_n_1265535.html

Quote from: Yorki3 on February 01, 2012, 08:11:23 AM

Yes there have been a number of failed cases. My point would be: Knowing that mistakes have been made, do you think its right to risk the death of an innocent man?

As I have said in the deleted thread, I challenge you to name one person that has been executed since 1976 in the USA and was later Proved innocent!

Quote from: Yorki3

Timothy Cole was exonerated by Texas in 2009 after being sentenced to a 25 year term. He died whilst incarcerated. Now yes its not a DP case...

Jim S.

But also, how many states are readily going to admit there ruling and legal system has sent an innocent man to his death?

Independents have taken out their own reports and returned decisions of innocence…

Independent cases include Larry Griffin: where the University of Michigan Law School ran a report and returned 100% innocence verdict

New Hell Hole News - #34
January 10, 2012
Step 1 Grievance filed 12-27-11
Informal resolution
Who did you talk to: Capt. Patrick Dickens.
What was his response? "This is out of my hands. It's the major's call."

State your grievance:

Retaliation by Virgil McMullen, Major. Since 10-17-11 I've filed numerous complaints (on McMullen's illegal actions, conditions & policy). Answering none, McMullen siccs the skakedown team on me who tell me that McMullen has a hard on for me and has vowed revenge. On 12-13-11 I filed complaints via letter on McMullen.

On 12-14-11 Prisoners Cobb 467 and Wilkens 533 assaulted staff. McMullen falsely accused me of a vague "conspiracy" involvement using an inappropriate I-203 process, punishing me with no due process by total deprivation of all property, leaving me naked for eight [8] days in a feces-contaminated cell despite the fact that both Cobb and Wilkens loudly proclaimed to the major on the run that I had NO involvement in their actions whatsoever. Held incommunicado and denied any measure of life's basic necessities my general and legal mail was interdicted and confiscated after opening and has not been returned to me along with my legal material (Dictionary and encyclopedia), fan and Vatican rosary. I was subjected to sleep deprivation by incessant cell "searches" every two (2) hours, gas purge fans sucking freezing cold air into my cell intermittently, 30 minute interval door beating "verbal response" checks and lights locked on 24/7. Subjected to these actions and conditions intended as torture I was left naked in a freezing cold cell without even a roll of toilet paper or a bar of soap. When defecating I was forced to clean my anus with my hands and water, then use my hands to eat food loaf, on which I was improperly placed for an imagined offense. Pulled out of my cell naked and paraded naked every two (2) hours before (sometimes female) officers, during strip searches ordered to put my hands/fingers in my mouth and pull out my cheeks.

The back wall of my cell is an outside wall and is freezing, my steel bunk anchored to it. Unable, with no mattress or bedding, to lie down and sleep on the freezing steel bunk, with temperatures in the 30's I was forced to constantly walk back and forth in the cell to try to maintain my body warmth until after six (6) days I collapsed from exhaustion. When officers could not rouse me from my fugue-like stupor they threatened to gas me and turned on the gas purge fans intermittently all night to "freeze that bitch out and wake him up!" The major had thick opaque coverlets placed on the cell doors making them solid and subjecting me to isolation/solitary confinement in absence of any disciplinary conviction for any offense or sentence to solitary. These incessant shakedowns continue despite the fact that the section was locked down. There was no movement. We were in empty cells with no property. The cell doors are totally sealed and under camera surveillance 24/7. Although there is no fourth (4th) amendment expectation of privacy in a prison cell, under the eighth (8th) amendment, searches must be reasonable under a totality of circumstances. In this case 96 cell searches in eight (8) days are intended as invidious harassment along with the other actions, conditions and/or deprivations described herein are NOT "reasonable" at all. Placed handcuffed (behind my back) in the shower stall and told "this is a use-of-force shower" by Sgt. Mooring. I was soaked naked with cold water, denied a towel and placed wet and freezing back in my cell. The gas purge fans were turned on to "blow dry" me when the outside temperature was in the 30's. While Mooring laughed and said "now that's what I call efficiency!" Portions of my property and mail are still being withheld. These actions, deprivations and conditions violate all my rights and constitute torture by any definition of that term, violate my constitutional rights under the first, fourth, sixth, eighth and fourteenth amendments and conventions and treaties against torture.

Action requested: that my property be returned. McMullen and all those in privity/concert with him be restrained/enjoined from committing any/all future such acts, my level 1 status restored and that I be justly restored for my suffering.
____________________________
999143 H. W. Hank Skinner December 27, 2011

A few things you should know additionally about this: I was never written any case in any of this and I had no involvement at all in any assaults at all. I have done nothing wrong, nada.

These assaults on officers started on Nov. 27 and recurred on Dec. 6, Dec. 10/11 and Dec. 14. Before that the prisoners on E-pod, population ad segs, were assaulting officers too; four (4) got stabbed, one shoulder broke and another knee dislocated. Then six officers here on F-pod got shot with projectiles.

All of this happened because the major decided to come down here and take the clothes of all the guys who're on Level III, in the dead of winter - long johns, tops and bottoms, t-shirts and shorts. Most of these guys are on cell restriction and only get to recreate one (1) day a week, on Monday. The major made another rule that anyone with hair on their face or head cannot go to the dayroom, so they got cheated out of their one day of recreation for 3 weeks in a row.

Then the Major came walking through here while Wilkens was in the dayroom, went in his cell and started ransacking his religious items and accountrements for which Wilkens had property papers. Also, he called Wilkens a "bitch". To a convict, that's equivalent to a slap in the mouth, a fighting challenge. If you let anyone talk to you like that in prison and then don't address it, people will think you are a bitch. Me, I know I am a man; I'm secure within myself; I can't be incited/inflamed by a .02 cent B.S. but some of these younger ones can be manipulated that way and that seems to be what McMullen is after. And, they keep on manufacturing, aggrandizing, contriving and embellishing disciplinary cases and magnifying them into more than they really are otherwise. Like threatening an officer into "staff assault" on a classification form when the true facts would not even support a minor threat case to start with. It seems to me that McMullen is a sadist looking to provoke violence out of these prisoners so he can appear justified to ride in and crush it in an overbearing, excessive way.

We know his actions were intended as torture because he flatly told us so and even bragged about it and, this is exactly the sort of treatment Congress condemned for non-combatant foreign nationals at Guantanamo in Cuba and Abu Ghraib prisons in Iraq 3 years ago.

McMullen told Cobb "I'm going to torture your ass until you beg me to quit, but I won't, until I'm satisfied! I'm going to leave these lights on 24/7, we're gonna wake your ass up every 30 minutes! You're going to be out here on this run falling out standing up and begging me to make it go away! When you do get a pen and think to write out of here, you're gong to write me an I-60 instead, pleading with me to make it stop! If you spear another one of my officers I'm going to take you down to that barber shop where those cameras can't see me and stomp your fuckin' guts out!"

He told me "your ass should've died two months ago. But we're gonna get you in another couple months, bet your ass on that!" I said in a real nice inquisitive tone: "Oh, you think so?" He said: "I damn well know so! Believe it!"
He told me: "I took your soap (I had one bar of state soap for about 6 hours). You use them shitty hands to eat your food loaf and enjoy it. I'm going to cover up your door and leave your ass in there without nothing and make you miserable as hell!" I told him "your weak silly ass ain't got what it take to make me miserable, little fella", laughed at him and mocked his statements. "You gone git'ch your hearhht right, boy-eh."
I just determined to never let him have any affect on me whatsoever and, no matter what he did, to stay in good humor and laugh at it. I did too, all the way through it.

The food loaf - he made that rule that the officers could not open the beanholes/food tray slots on our cells without a Sgt. present. The day of the assaults they'd served breakfast late and had changed shifts so no Sgt came. All of us had trays in our cells. When I told the officer to get this tray out of my house, he told me "I can't open your slot without a Sgt. and I can't change it 'cause they're watching this section continuously in 12 control. Just leave it, I'll get it at lunch time". Then the assaults occurred at about 7:00 am - 7:30 am and the major came down here and took everyone's property, tracked feces off the run into my cell, going in and out to get my property, then tracked it all over my bunk when two of them climbed up there to look in the window casing, leaving me in the cell with nothing, no rag to wipe it with, no toilet paper, nothing. They were pulling us out every 2 hours for shakedown, so I finally refused to go back in the cell at about 2:00 am and they got the SSI (inmate porter) to make a half-assed attempt to mop it out. Still smelled like shit, though. Now, with disinfectant mixed in. Wheee!!

So, anyway, I never "refused to relinquish any food tray" -- that's 100% bogus. No one would ever tell me what was "possession of unauthorized items". The I-203 continuing me on level III and taking "all property" for 30 days dated 12/14 and continued through 12/22 claimed only the vague allegations of "conspiracy to assault staff; refusal to relinquish food tray (putting me on 7 days of food loaf); possession of unauthorized items". I was never written any case for any of these bogus, made up, vague and imagined "offenses". The law is more than plain that I cannot be classified for punishment. Yet that is exactly what this P.O.S. major is doing.

So, that's the situation. We continue to be subjected to cell searches four times a day, at 6, 12, 6, 12 around the clock. For Wilkens and Cobb there might be some justification as they actually assaulted some officers. Myself and Licho Escamilla are totally innocent. We did nothing at all. Not a thing.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Best regards,

Hankypoo

Iranian courts have sentenced two bloggers to death for "spreading corruption," and government security forces have arrested four other journalists, in the lead-up to the nation's March elections.

"In the past two weeks, security forces have reportedly arrested four journalists," the U.S. State Department said in a statement, "including Shahram Manouchehri, Sahamedin Bourghani, Parastoo Dokouhaki, and Marzieh Rasouli, and Iranian courts confirmed death sentences for bloggers Saeed Malekpour and Vahid Asghari, both of whom were not accorded due process and now face imminent execution on charges of 'spreading corruption.'"

The State Department faulted Iran for trying "to extinguish all forms of free expression and limit its citizens’ access to information in the lead-up to March parliamentary elections."

David,

I am certain that, as a journalism professor, you direct your students to arm themselves with facts to counter perceived weaknesses in their stories (please correct me if I'm wrong).  With that in mind, I'd like to ask a simple question to which I'm sure you have a simple answer.

One central theory which is being passed around is that Twila Busby was raped and murdered by her (now dead) uncle.  Please allow me to quote you from a previous story: "...Vagina­l swabs of Twila. She was found with her jeans unbuttoned and partially removed. "

Crime scene photos being circulated by Hank Skinner, et.al., include one of Twila Busby's body as it was found at the crime scene. 

The picture can be viewed directly here: http://www.hankskinner.com/twila-body-lower.jpg .

This picture would tend to directly contradict the statement made by you.  Do you have an explanation for this?

Dear Dr. Protess: you are just parroting things that Skinner claims is truth. Did you investigat­e any of this or just take Skinner at face value? For instance: were you aware that NO doctor has ever testified, nor has there been any medical evidence establishi­ng Skinner's *claimed* allergy to Codeine? Have you seen his latest "revelatio­n" as to how he came to ingest the codeine (colorblin­d, drinking from the wrong glass, etc.)? What do you think about that?

Here's something else--let me quote you: "...Vagina­l swabs of Twila. She was found with her jeans unbuttoned and partially removed. " If you look at the crime scene photo of her body as it was found on the night she was murdered (http://www­.hankskinn­er.com/fac­ts.html) you will clearly see that her jeans were *not* unbuttoned and they were *not* pulled down as you, again, parrot.

Did you even investigat­e this case; or are you nothing more than yet-anothe­r-dishones­t anti-death penalty activist using the cover of "investiga­tive reporting" to try and skew public opinion for political purposes?

Texas Death Row Inmate Henry "Hank" Skinner Confessed!
   
By SOP newswire2    
   

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Will Additional DNA Testing Be Conducted Before Nov 9th for a Condemned Hank Skinner?...

Skinner confessed and the confession was deemed inadmissible, but is part of the appellate record.

A "completely incapacitated" Skinner, somehow, traveled the 4 blocks from the murder scene, went to his ex girlfriends house, hid in her closet and he was covered in blood from the crime scene.

Skinner`s own blood spatter expert found that Skinner`s "passed out" story was inconsistent with the blood being all over Skinner.

Skinner`s defense is that he was completely incapacitated the night of the murders, which is contradicted by his confession, by the blood spatter evidence and by his travels to his ex girlfriends house?

Why did Skinner chose to walk the 4 blocks to his ex girlfriends house, instead of calling the police?

Skinner refused additional DNA testing because he was implicated by the prior, multiple DNA tests, pre trial, that tied him to the crime scene and he didn`t want more DNA to hurt his case.

The only reason for such denial of additional DNA testing is that Skinner knew additional DNA evidence would harm him even more.

Skinner, his defense counsel and other death penalty opponents are saying that the untested DNA will prove Skinner innocent, meaning that Skinner decided, pre trial, that it was better to face a death sentence than to face freedom, the only "logic" for Skinner`s refusal of the additional DNA testing, when he "knew" it would prove his innocence. Absurd, of course.

Could this be another anti death penalty fraud? Of course.

 

Sincerely, Dudley Sharp
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com,

Houston, Texas

Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS , VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O`Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.

A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.