UNITED STATES – Texas, in the southern United States, executed his oldest death row inmate on Thursday 21 Aprilmore than thirty years after the murder for which he was convicted, despite pleas for clemency from opponents of the death penalty.
Carl Buntion, 78, received a lethal injection at 6:24 PM local time at Huntsville Prison in Texas, before his death was pronounced at 6:39 a.m. (1:39 a.m. Paris time), according to a Texas Prison Services document.
Tennessee, who would also come on Thursday put to death his prisoner sentenced to death the eldest, postponed the execution at the last minute, according to a tweet from state governor Bill Lee.
“Execution is not the solution”
“I regret what I’ve done,” said Carl Buntion in his last words. “I’m ready to go.” A “spiritual adviser” was able to assist and touch him during the execution, authorities said, a first in Texas.
In front of the high red-brick walls of Huntsville Prison, a few protesters shouted “execution is not the answer” while dozens of people gathered in support of her, an AFP correspondent on the ground noted.
The victim’s family, a police officer, was also present. Carl Buntion’s lawyers had told AFP they had filed a final appeal with the United States Supreme Court, without success.
convicted 13 times
Carl Buntion’s defenders were no longer trying to prove his innocence. But in Texas, a large conservative state in the South, the most executed state in the United States, a person can only be sentenced to death if a jury finds that he poses a future danger to others.
However, Carl Buntion, who suffered in particular from osteoarthritis, vertigo, hepatitis and cirrhosis, could “no longer be dangerous,” had argued for his lawyers in a now-debated appeal, granting a pardon and releasing Texas terms.
By June 1990, this man, raised by an alcoholic and abusive father, had been convicted and paroled 13 times for sexually assaulting a child. While intervening for a common traffic violation in Houston, Carl Buntion shot and killed police officer James Irby.
Isolated in his cell for 23 hours a day for 20 years
He had been sentenced to the death penalty and had seen this verdict quashed in 2009 by the Texas Supreme Court, which found that the defense had not been properly heard by the jurors.
But in 2012, he was again sentenced to death. Carl Buntion spent 23 hours a day in his cell for 20 years.
Last year, the US Supreme Court declined to overturn his conviction, but progressive judge Stephen Breyer said the length of his incarceration called into question the constitutionality of the death penalty.
More executions to come
In Tennessee, Governor Bill Lee announced Thursday afternoon that Oscar Smith’s execution would not take place that evening “due to an oversight in the preparation of the lethal injection”, granting a “temporary stay” while the case is resolved.
Oscar Smith, 72, was convicted of the 1989 murder of his estranged wife and her two sons. All of Oscar Smith’s appeals had been rejected thus far. His lawyers had appealed to the Supreme Court.
“After a thorough review of Oscar Smith’s clemency request and a careful review of the case, the Tennessee judgment stands and I will not intervene,” Bill Lee said Tuesday.
A decision that was subsequently deemed “extremely disappointing” for Oscar Smith’s lawyer. The latter “has claimed his innocence for more than thirty years,” told CNN Amy Harwell, who claims new DNA analysis techniques on the murder weapon prove his denials.
In Texas, the execution of Carl Buntion should be followed by the execution, scheduled for April 27, of Melissa Lucio, charged with the murder of her 2-year-old daughter in 2007. Convicted after a controversial trial, she is supported by many elected Democrats and Republicans, as well as reality TV star Kim Kardashian, who helped publicize what his defenders call a miscarriage of justice.
See also on The HuffPost: This Texas Couple Survived a Tornado by Hiding in Their Bathtub
