NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!
Posted on 07/24/2008 8:45:49 AM PDT by Borges
PARCHMAN - One of Marcus Gentry's killers is dead.
"The Mississippi Department of Corrections today conducted the mandated execution of inmate Dale Leo Bishop," Commissioner Christopher Epps said Wednesday. "This evening closed the final phase of the Dale Leo Bishop case, which began on Dec. 10, 1998, with the kidnapping and murder of Marcus James Gentry."
The death by lethal injection was carried out, he said, "with dignity and decorum."
Bishop wore a goatee and a red prison jumpsuit with flip-flops to his execution by lethal injection at 6 p.m. He was pronounced dead at 6:14 p.m. A couple of hours earlier Bishop ate a last meal of pineapple supreme pizza, cherries and cream ice cream and root beer.
"It is our sincere hope that the family ... of Mr. Marcus James Gentry may now begin the process of healing," Epps added.
Bishop's last statement reportedly included remorse, politics and religious conviction.
"He apologized to the family of Mr. Marcus James Gentry," Epps said. "He said it was a senseless act, and he urged people to vote for Barack Obama, because he said it would stop executions. He also said he felt he had got right with God and ready to go."
Brutal murder Bishop was executed for his part in Gentry's Dec. 10, 1998, death. He was at some friends' apartment in Saltillo with Jessie Johnson, Gentry and some other people when Johnson suggested they go for more beer. The suggestion appeared to be a ruse, because as Gentry drove, Johnson asked him why he had "narced" on Johnson's brothers.
Gentry denied the accusation, but Johnson reached to the floorboard, grabbed Bishop's framing hammer and hit Gentry in the face.
During the course of the beating, Gentry got away once, but Bishop chased him down, brought him back and held him while Johnson beat him to death with the hammer.
State Medical Examiner Steven Hayne testified that Gentry's body had 23 wounds from the hammer, including a tear in his throat.
In a statement read by an MDOC official, the Gentry family said, "This man who knowingly and intentionally helped beat to death and took another life with his own hands was punished the way that was intended, and whether or not people believe in the death penalty, until you stand in our shoes and feel our pain, the loss of someone you love being ripped away, do not judge."
Gentry's mother, Kathy Gentry, and his uncle Gerald Gentry witnessed the execution. Several other Gentry family members also were at Parchman, but did not witness the execution. Bishop had requested that two members of his family, his ex-wife Tonya Cunningham and his nephew David Wolf witness the execution.
Bishop had long appeared remorseful about the crime. He had even asked for the death penalty during his sentencing phase. A state official said Bishop was still trying to reconcile himself to the action just hours before his death.
"He said Mark Gentry was his friend, and they were supposed to be fighting, but it went too far," said C. Daryl Neely, a policy adviser to Gov. Haley Barbour.
Controversial execution While capital punishment has its own opponents, Bishop's execution garnered extra opposition. He was tried by a Lee County jury, while fellow defendant Jessie Johnson was granted a change of venue to Tishomingo County.
Johnson, the most active participant in Gentry's killing, was sentenced to life without parole and remains a prisoner in Unit 29 at the state penal farm at Parchman.
Bishop's background also has been cited by those urging against his execution.
"Bishop suffered from serious mental illness (bipolar disorder), that there is a history of mental illness in his family, and that his childhood was abusive and marked by severe deprivation," states Amnesty International, an organization whose aims include ending the death penalty worldwide.
In a series of appeals, the last of which was denied Wednesday afternoon by the Supreme Court, Bishop's attorneys painted a picture of a man who endured childhood poverty, physical abuse and mental illness that went untreated throughout his childhood. (Bishop was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after his arrival at Parchman.)
Barbour has been criticized in some circles for commuting the sentence of an MDOC trusty convicted of his own wife's murder while turning down Bishop's requests for clemency.
Barbour's office issued a one-line response to the execution: "Justice has been rendered for this horrible crime."
From the headline I thought that an actual Bishop had been executed.
Was it the Spanish Inquisition?
Less than ten years from the crime to the needle. Must be a record.
Well this Bishop weren’t no altar boy.
Wishful thinking on the editor's part.
I thought the Episcopalians had finally got something right.
1 less vote for Obama.
Funny. I was thinking that Pope Benedict sure isn’t messing around.
Night takes Bishop. Checkmate.
"He apologized to the family of Mr. Marcus James Gentry," Epps said. "He said it was a senseless act, and he urged people to vote for Barack Obama, because he said it would stop executions. He also said he felt he had got right with God and ready to go."
Until Obama facilitated Sharia law brings executions back again with a horrible and sweeping vengeance.
The comments above made me laugh. And that's no papal bull!
;-)
NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!
Absolutely not, now he's a guaranteed Dem vote.
But there's a dead bishop on the landing...
Just breathing good air . . . too bad it took so long.
Maybe the saintly Messiah Hussein Obama will resurrect his body . . .
ROFL.
Has anyone called the Church Police?
Actually, since he is dead and was a Democrat, wouldn't that be one MORE vote for Obama?
The death by lethal injection was carried out, he said, “with dignity and decorum.”
Dignity and decorum? This guy should have been killed the same way he killed his victum. He should have been beaten to death with a hammer. Let him suffer the way his victum suffered.
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