rockin'robin
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HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A 67-year-old man who was convicted of killing four men more than three decades ago has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to keep him from becoming the oldest Texas prisoner put to death in an execution scheduled for Wednesday evening.
Lester Bower Jr. faces lethal injection for the October 1983 fatal shootings at an airplane hangar on a ranch near Sherman, about 60 miles north of Dallas. Prosecutors say he killed the four after stealing an airplane that he had been trying to buy from one of his victims.
"I do have remorse," Bower, who has maintained his innocence, told The Associated Press two weeks ago from death row. "I'm remorseful for putting my family and my wife and my friends through this.
"If this is going to bring some closure to them (the victim's family), then good. But if they think by this they're executing the person that killed their loved one, then that's going to come up a little bit short."
If the execution goes ahead, Bower would be the eighth inmate given a lethal dose of pentobarbital this year in Texas, which carries out capital punishment more than any other state.
His attorneys told the high court that jurors didn't have the opportunity in their punishment deliberations to fully consider that Bower had no previous criminal record. Attorneys also contended that the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals used an incorrect legal standard when it denied an appeal for Bower a decade ago.
"This is not a typical death penalty case," his lead lawyer, Peter Buscemi, told the justices, urging a reprieve so the court "has sufficient time" to evaluate the appeal.
Stephen Hoffman, an assistant Texas attorney general, responded that 30 years of litigation was enough and justice already had been delayed "for the four families of the men that Bower slaughtered in cold blood."
The Supreme Court declined in March to review Bower's case — although three justices, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, said they would have thrown out his death sentence.
http://news.yahoo.com/texas-inmate-67-set-execution-slayings-31-years-054827888.html#
Lester Bower Jr. faces lethal injection for the October 1983 fatal shootings at an airplane hangar on a ranch near Sherman, about 60 miles north of Dallas. Prosecutors say he killed the four after stealing an airplane that he had been trying to buy from one of his victims.
"I do have remorse," Bower, who has maintained his innocence, told The Associated Press two weeks ago from death row. "I'm remorseful for putting my family and my wife and my friends through this.
"If this is going to bring some closure to them (the victim's family), then good. But if they think by this they're executing the person that killed their loved one, then that's going to come up a little bit short."
If the execution goes ahead, Bower would be the eighth inmate given a lethal dose of pentobarbital this year in Texas, which carries out capital punishment more than any other state.
His attorneys told the high court that jurors didn't have the opportunity in their punishment deliberations to fully consider that Bower had no previous criminal record. Attorneys also contended that the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals used an incorrect legal standard when it denied an appeal for Bower a decade ago.
"This is not a typical death penalty case," his lead lawyer, Peter Buscemi, told the justices, urging a reprieve so the court "has sufficient time" to evaluate the appeal.
Stephen Hoffman, an assistant Texas attorney general, responded that 30 years of litigation was enough and justice already had been delayed "for the four families of the men that Bower slaughtered in cold blood."
The Supreme Court declined in March to review Bower's case — although three justices, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, said they would have thrown out his death sentence.
http://news.yahoo.com/texas-inmate-67-set-execution-slayings-31-years-054827888.html#
