Posted on 08/24/2007 9:01:45 PM PDT by Dubya
HUNTSVILLE -- Apologizing directly to his victim's relatives but calling his punishment unjust, Johnny Ray Conner was executed Wednesday evening for killing a Houston convenience store clerk during a failed robbery in 1998.
Conner was the 400th person executed in Texas since executions resumed in December 1982.
Conner, 32, asked for forgiveness repeatedly and expressed love for his family and the family of Kathyanna Nguyen, the woman he killed.
He first asked the warden his name and for permission to speak longer than the usual two to three minutes and to have Nguyen's daughter pointed out to him through the windows to the witness rooms.
He specifically asked one of her relatives to look at him, but she remained turned to the side with her hands clasped in prayer.
"This is destiny. This is life. This is something Allah wants me to do," he said in his lengthy statement.
"I want you to understand. I'm not mad at you. When I get to the gates of heaven I'm going to be waiting for you. Please forgive me."
He went on: "What is happening to me is unjust, and the system is broken."
He was pronounced dead at 6:20 p.m.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected Conner's contention that his trial attorneys were deficient for not investigating a leg injury that left Conner with a limp. The disability would have prevented him from running from the store.
Witnesses who identified Conner as the gunman told of seeing a man running from the scene. None mentioned a limp.
A federal judge agreed with the argument and granted Conner a new trial. A federal appeals court disagreed and overturned that ruling this year, clearing the way for Conner's execution.
Conner's trial lawyers said the injury was never an issue because Conner told them his broken leg had long been healed.
Lyn McClellan, the Harris County prosecutor who tried the case, said Conner's complaint was a fabrication.
"They had video of him in jail walking down the hallway just fine without any limp," he said. "That's the problem with some made-up defense. You've got to live it out all the time or you get caught."
The prospect of Texas executing its 400th prisoner prompted an outcry from death penalty opponents.
"Johnny Conner's execution represents 400 instances of failed public policy for Texans," the Austin-based Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty said.
The European Union, which opposes capital punishment and bans it in its 27 nations, urged Gov. Rick Perry to stop Conner's execution and impose a death penalty moratorium.
Perry spokesman Robert Black brushed aside the criticism.
"Texans long ago decided that the death penalty is a just and appropriate punishment for the most horrible crimes committed against our citizens," he said.
Nguyen, 49, was shot in the head on a Sunday afternoon in May 1998. Julian Gutierrez, a customer walking into the store to pay for gas, interrupted the holdup, tried to run back outside and was shot in the shoulder.
"The clerk was in one of those cubicles where they have this bulletproof glass," McClellan said. "He was able to get his gun in there, and it was kind of like being in a shooting gallery."
Gutierrez survived and was among at least three people to identify Conner, whose fingerprint was found on a bottle.
The next scheduled execution is Tuesday. DaRoyce Mosley was condemned for his part in the slayings of four people during the robbery of a bar in Kilgore in 1994.
“He went on: “What is happening to me is unjust, and the system is broken.”
“He was pronounced dead at 6:20 p.m”
Non-sequitur ping.
Do you think he has found out that there are no 72 virgins yet?
You know what? I have come to believe that some people are really just truly evil, “bad seeds” from their first breath.
Or else the remark showed the incorrectness of his statement-he was dead at 6:20, the system wasn’t broken at all!
Um, that’s what a non-sequitur *is*.
Non sequitur is Latin for “it does not follow.” In formal logic, an argument is a non sequitur if its conclusion does not follow from its premises.[1] In a non sequitur, the conclusion can be either true or false, but the argument is a fallacy because the conclusion does not follow from the premise. All formal fallacies are specific types of non sequitur. The term has special applicability in law, having a formal legal definition.
His argument was that the system was “broke”.
Then he was executed for his crime.
That ~was~ the joke....:))
As long as he’s stiff, it’s all just semantics now, anyway.....LOL!
True. I just hope it doesn’t take too long to get that scum in Florida that was just convicted, who killed that little girl. Sick evil piece of scum from hell.
Why does the AP see fit to mention the EU’s stance on this Texas issue?
The scumbag lived 9 years longer than his victim. Still, nine years is relatively quick for putting down a killer these days.
The world is a better, safer place. Texas is way behind! But, I imagine they are doing better than any other state.
I went through 5 years of hell at the hands of a “weird uncle”.
You *don’t* want to know what *I’d* do to pedophiles.
THAT is an excellent question. Perhaps it is for the same reason that they publish pieces like THIS ONE which pushes another European socialist agenda - - giving terrorists, "access to US courts".
Whatever it is, it’s still too good for them. I can’t bear violence, but I become rabid on the just punishment of anyone who would harm a child.
Well, they don’t want to go down under Islam all by themselves. They want our company when they go under.
“He was pronounced dead at 6:20 p.m.”
Buh-Bye.
I will have to go and peruse the DUmmie postings after I read the postings here. Theirs are always good for a real laugh. You gotta wonder at how the system managed to “get ‘er done” in less than a decade in his case. Maybe things are improving in the system. Does anyone know if the obligatory but completely meaningless vigil was held outside the gates of the facility this time?
Their headline is so wrong. That wasn’t an apology. That was taunting.
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