chloe
12-03-2009, 10:39 PM
HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A 44-year-old Texas man was executed Thursday evening for raping and murdering an 11-year-old girl, despite pleas from his attorneys he was too mentally impaired to qualify for capital punishment.
Bobby Wayne Woods received lethal injection about a half-hour after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to halt his punishment, which was delayed briefly until the high court ruled in his case. His lawyers had argued Woods was mentally impaired, making him ineligible for execution, and that previous appeals to spare Woods' life were unsuccessful because of shoddy work by his lawyer at the time.
Tests administered to Woods put his IQ anywhere from the 60s to the 80s. An IQ of 70 is considered the threshold for mental impairment.
Woods was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to die for the April 1997 slaying of Sarah Patterson, his ex-girlfriend's daughter. She and her 9-year-old brother were snatched from their home in Granbury, near Fort Worth. Sarah's throat was slit with a knife. Her brother was beaten and left for dead but survived to testify against Woods.
Asked by a warden if he had a final statement, Woods lifted his head from the pillow on the death chamber gurney and replied: "Bye. I'm ready."
Eight minutes later, at 6:40 p.m. CST, he was pronounced dead.
http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-national/20091203/US.Texas.Execution/
Bobby Wayne Woods received lethal injection about a half-hour after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to halt his punishment, which was delayed briefly until the high court ruled in his case. His lawyers had argued Woods was mentally impaired, making him ineligible for execution, and that previous appeals to spare Woods' life were unsuccessful because of shoddy work by his lawyer at the time.
Tests administered to Woods put his IQ anywhere from the 60s to the 80s. An IQ of 70 is considered the threshold for mental impairment.
Woods was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to die for the April 1997 slaying of Sarah Patterson, his ex-girlfriend's daughter. She and her 9-year-old brother were snatched from their home in Granbury, near Fort Worth. Sarah's throat was slit with a knife. Her brother was beaten and left for dead but survived to testify against Woods.
Asked by a warden if he had a final statement, Woods lifted his head from the pillow on the death chamber gurney and replied: "Bye. I'm ready."
Eight minutes later, at 6:40 p.m. CST, he was pronounced dead.
http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-national/20091203/US.Texas.Execution/