HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) \u2014 A man who experts for both prosecutors and defense attorneys had said was intellectually disabled became the 600th person executed in Texas since 1982, put to death Thursday evening for the killing of a retired 77-year-old college professor.<\/p>\n
Edward Busby Jr. was pronounced dead at 8:11 p.m. following a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, hours after a divided Supreme Court lifted a stay over his disabilities claims. The execution followed a series of last-minute legal efforts by Busby’s attorneys in a bid to spare his life after the nation\u2019s high court lifted a stay hours earlier. <\/p>\n
Busby was condemned for the suffocation death of Laura Lee Crane, a 77-year-old retired professor from Texas Christian University who prosecutors say was abducted from a grocery store parking lot in January 2004 and left to suffocate in the trunk of her car with duct tape wrapped around her face.<\/p>\n
The execution was the 600th in Texas since the state resumed carrying out the death penalty in 1982.<\/p>\n
Busby appeared extremely contrite when asked by the warden if he had a final statement, repeatedly apologizing and asking for forgiveness.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am so sorry for what happened,\u201d he said while strapped to the death chamber gurney. \u201cMiss Crane was a lovely woman. I never meant anything bad to happen to her.\u201d He said he wished he could \u201ctake it all back\u201d and added he had \u201cno right to get in that car.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll take the blame if that helps.”<\/p>\n
He said he had surrendered his life to God and urged a sister, who was praying and watching through a window a short distance away, to find a church and \u201cpick up your cross.\u201d I\u2019m here because this is the will of God,\u201d he said before the injection got underway.<\/p>\n
Busby\u2019s execution had been in doubt after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week issued a stay of execution to further review his claims of intellectual disability. But the Supreme Court allowed the execution to proceed after overturning the stay Thursday at the request of the Texas Attorney General\u2019s Office. Later Thursday evening, Busby\u2019s lawyers again asked the 5th Circuit for an 11th-hour stay but were quickly denied. <\/p>\n
The Supreme Court in 2002 barred the execution of intellectually disabled people. But it has given states some discretion to decide how to determine such disabilities.<\/p>\n
Busby’s attorneys had argued against his being put to death because a defense expert as well as one hired by the Tarrant County District Attorney\u2019s Office, which prosecuted the case, both found he was intellectually disabled.<\/p>\n
The district attorney\u2019s office had previously recommended that Busby\u2019s sentence be reduced to life in prison. But the trial judge in Busby\u2019s case disagreed with the findings of intellectual disability and in 2023 upheld the death sentence.<\/p>\n
In a statement Wednesday, the district attorney’s office said it requested Thursday’s execution date because it believed that under current law Busy was not intellectually disabled. <\/p>\n
The Texas Attorney General\u2019s Office had urged the Supreme Court to lift the stay, arguing Busby\u2019s claims of intellectual disability are \u201cmeritless\u201d and based on \u201cconflicting evidence.\u201d It added that similar appeals were previously rejected.<\/p>\n
Two other prior execution dates for Busby had been delayed by courts. <\/p>\n
Abraham Bonowitz, executive director of Death Penalty Action, a national anti-death penalty group, criticized the attorney\u2019s general\u2019s for pressing for the execution to be carried out without a review of the merits of Busby’s intellectual disability claims.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe merits of this case are significant,\u201d Bonowitz said before the execution was carried out. \u201cHow can anyone claim this is fair due process?\u201d<\/p>\n
Prosecutors have said Busby and his co-defendant, Kathleen Latimer, abducted Crane in her car from a Fort Worth grocery store parking lot and later put in her vehicle\u2019s trunk as they drove around. Prosecutors said she died in the trunk after suffocating from having 23 feet (7 meters) of duct tape wrapped over her entire face, covering her mouth and nose.<\/p>\n
Busby was arrested in Oklahoma City driving Crane\u2019s car and led authorities to her body in Oklahoma just north of the Texas border.<\/p>\n
After his arrest, Busby told investigators Latimer was the person who had pushed him to abduct Crane, restrain her with the tape and that he \u201cnever meant for her to get hurt or anything.\u201d Latimer remains in prison after receiving a life sentence for murder.<\/p>\n
Busby was the fourth person put to death this year in Texas and the 12th in the country. Texas has historically held more executions than any other state.<\/p>\n
Earlier Thursday, Oklahoma executed Raymond Johnson for killing his ex-girlfriend and her 7-month-old daughter nearly 20 years ago.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Lozano reported from Houston. Follow Juan A. Lozano: https:\/\/x.com\/juanlozano70<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) \u2014 A man who experts for both prosecutors and defense attorneys had said was intellectually…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[25381,557,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-293797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-ap-u-s-news","tag-associated-press","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}