Posted on 11/11/2005 4:49:43 PM PST by Graybeard58
Steven Van McHone was put to death at Central Prison early Friday morning, 15 years after he killed his mother and stepfather at their Surry County home.
McHone entered the execution chamber on a gurney at 1:50 a.m., and he appeared to say "I'm so sorry" to Wes Adams Jr., a half-brother whom McHone almost killed the night of the parents' deaths. McHone then exchanged smiles and laughter with his attorney and with two friends, who were among nine people who served as official witnesses.
At about 2 a.m., executioners added a sedative to McHone's intravenous lines. He closed his eyes within two minutes and appeared to be asleep. Two lethal chemicals were added, and at 2:05 McHone's torso shook quickly and his face became pale. He appeared not to move afterward.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the order of the court has been carried out. He was pronounced dead at 2:10 a.m.," Marvin Polk, the warden of Central Prison, announced to the witnesses.
Wes Adams Jr. and his wife, Wendy Adams, released a statement afterward reiterating their support for the execution.
"We have sympathy and pray for comfort for those who will grieve Steve's passing," they wrote. "We do, however, feel that justice was upheld, and that this fate was sealed many years ago."
Some other relatives had opposed the execution, saying that they had forgiven McHone and wanted him to meet their families.
McHone's court appeals ran out late Thursday when the U.S. Supreme Court declined, for at least the second time, to intervene in the case. Gov. Mike Easley declined to grant clemency.
"Given the facts and circumstances of this case, I find no compelling reasons to invalidate the sentences recommended by the jury and affirmed by the courts," Easley said in a statement.
McHone's last meal at 5 p.m. consisted of Porterhouse steak, steak fries, chocolate cheese cake and a 20 oz. Mountain Dew. He did not release a final statement. His body was taken to the N.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Chapel Hill.
This needed a barf alert.
Why does it need a barf alert? Sounds like he got what he deserved.
Bye Bye scum ball. You won't be missed.
I get some grief but I am against the death penalty. I believe life in prison of hard labor but I am a pro lifer(unless of course your a deer). Not that I am unsympathetic to the victims, but I feel execution is barbaric
The world is a safer place.
Hmmmmm, he lived 15 more years after he took the lives of others. Said he was sorry then Joked with his witnesses and attorney. Yeah, he was sorry allright. No matter though. He is HISTORY! He'll NEVER kill another person will he?
'He appeared not to move afterward'
You'd hope not.
I believe life in prison of hard labor
How many prisons do YOU know that have Hard Labor? Yes, death penalty might be barbaric but...how barbaric were the crimes against innocent people, little children???? Nope, death penalty. Eye for an eye. It doesn't say eye for life in prison besides...they are paroled early enough anyway. Until we come up with something better, I have to go with the death penalty so they will never hurt another person/s or children again. Ever!
I'm with you my friend.
I would be against the death penalty too if I knew life meant life and not out in 10 years.
Slow roast in hell.
Good to hear. I was down at Death Row today (the guys got visitors because it is a state holiday). I really don't have much sympathy for the criminals, even those I know very well. In fact, I routinely visit a man who killed his family (except one brother who escaped) when he was a teen, and I don't think he has much sympathy for himself. But I think it is God's place to give life and to take it, and I think a life in prison is a suitable punishment for murderers.
Unfortunately, the mad dogs murder guards, prison librarians, and other prisoners periodically. A prison librarian here was raped, tortured, and killed by a prisoner a few years ago. Is that o.k. with you? He was already under life sentence without parole for three heinous murders. What do you propose should be done with him? The ACLU does not allow him to be shackled in solitary.
You also risk condoning murders of innocent people should the criminal ever escape. Far-fetched? No, the worst mass murder in Georgia was committed by three prison escapees. Carl Isaacs, the ringleader, bragged that he would do it again if he escaped, and he nearly succeeded in escaping from the Chatham County jail TWICE . . . once through a ventilation duct, and once in a garbage dumpster. Someone else successfully escaped via a garbage truck last week.
Would you be willing to look the surviving members of the Alday family in the eye and say that, even though Carl Isaacs is a mad dog who successfully broke prison to kill most of their family, you don't think their lives were worth protecting by executing him to begin with?
That's the most important reason he was executed, he will never murder again.
The truth is that overseeing criminals generally is a dangerous job. I think it is less dangerous for the guards on Georgia's Death Row than it is for many others in our state prison system. I believe the new prison on the grounds at GDC/Jackson will be used to house Georgia's most dangerous offenders--and thereby keep the guards safer from them--but I don't think the Death Row inmates will be among them.
Think of the death penalty as a way society can defend itself. The problem is, there are elements on the left who are determined to destroy society (so they can build a communist utopia on the ruins). One way they attack society is to make sure violent criminals are given as much free reign as possible. The left would turn "life in prison" into two years of self-esteem training and they would all but give murderers loaded guns when they are released. At least with the death penalty, once the criminals are dead the only way they can harm us is to vote for leftist politicians.
But it doesn't work that way at all. A tiny handful of criminals may get executed, but the most dangerous inmates are seldom among them. Here in Georgia, the typical Death Row inmate is someone who committed a brutal murder for one of two reasons: (1) he was furious with a spouse or significant other and/or the spouse's new lover or (2) he was caught in the act of committing another crime and killed out of fear. Most of these people are not really dangerous today, nor do the guards treat them as if they were.
On the other hand, partly because of the resources expended on the Death Row population, the penal system is LESS likely to confine truly dangerous people any longer than the minimum the law requires. They are afforded little in the way of rehabilitation, released as soon as possible, and barely supervised after release (no matter what the "official" terms may provide). The law-abiding part of society is ill served by this system.
It's not usually as barbaric as what the murders did to their victims before THEY died. It's not about revenge but justice. I see it as the only sure way to guarantee tht they will never do it again.
But God is the one who initially instituted the death penalty. It wasn't in the Law in the OT, it was before; right after the Flood when God gave some additional instructions to Noah.
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