Posted on 05/06/2008 5:25:44 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
JACKSON, Ga. - A Georgia man who killed his live-in girlfriend was executed Tuesday, the first inmate put to death since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of lethal injections.
William Earl Lynd was pronounced dead at 7:51 p.m. EDT, Georgia Department of Corrections spokeswoman Mallie McCord told The Associated Press. It came less than an hour after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected efforts to block it.
The roughly three dozen states around the country that use lethal injection held off on carrying out any executions for more than seven months while the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed the constitutionality of the three-drug cocktail that's used. It was the longest pause in U.S. executions in a quarter century.
The Supreme Court last month upheld the legality of lethal injections, and Georgia was the first state to carry one out.
Lynd, 53, was sentenced to die for kidnapping and shooting his live-in girlfriend, Ginger Moore, three times in the face and head two decades ago. After he buried Moore's body in a shallow grave near a south Georgia farm, authorities said Lynd fled to Ohio, where he shot and killed another woman who had stopped along the side of the road to help him.
Lynd has never denied killing Moore, 26, two days before Christmas in 1988. But his lawyers had sought a last minute reprieve from the courts, arguing that new forensic medical evidence showed he could not have kidnapped her because she was already dead when he stuffed her in the trunk of her car.
Prosecutors allege that Moore was still alive when Lynd placed her in the trunk — despite two gunshot wounds to the head. They say Lynd confessed to authorities that he fired the final, lethal shot when he heard her "thumping around" in the trunk.
The kidnapping had been an essential "aggravating" circumstance that made Lynd eligible for the death penalty.
Lawyers say Lynd and Moore had a volatile relationship and were in a heated argument over a trip to Florida when he shot her. His attorney, Tom Dunn, argued that the shooting was not premeditated but, rather, took place during an argument and after taking Valium, marijuana and alcohol, and was not premeditated. In the days leading up to Lynd's execution, Dunn asked several courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, to block it but was turned down each time.
Death penalty opponents staged vigils around the state Tuesday night to protest the first of an expected wave of executions around the country.
Texas conducted the nation's last execution, putting Michael Richard to death on Sept. 25, 2007, the same day the Supreme Court agreed to consider a Kentucky case brought by two prisoners who claimed the lethal injection method violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Cocktails, anyone?
I hope ol’ Sparky gets nice and warm .... I’m sure there’s gotta be a backlog. Line’em up, and dim the lights.
It will be interesting to see if other states, like Connecticut who’s had inmates on death row for several years, will follow suit.
NEXT?!
Rest In Torment, Lynd
William Earl Lynd is seen in an undated prison photo. The U.S. state of Georgia has scheduled the execution of Lynd, a convicted murderer, on May 6, 2008 or soon afterward, in what will likely be the first use of lethal injection since a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ended an effective moratorium on capital punishment. REUTERS/Georgia Department of Corrections/Handout
I remember back in the bad old days of the 1960’s when an outgoing governor would commute all death sentences to life in prison. Glad those days are over.
Now if we could bring back the noose.
Another happy ending on a Tuesday night......
Only will happen if the prisoners volunteer to be executed.I doubt Connecticut would pull the switch on the animals we have here.
Nearly twenty years later......
Woohoo! Hell ain’t half full, light’em up!
Oh, that's completely different then. Not guilty, sorry for the inconvenience, have a nice day!
Or: Why I hate lawyers.
Cheers
Ditto cheers, but I’m using a nice Belgian-styled Dubbel from a local craft brewery rather than a cocktail.
The thing that really makes my blood boil is these fools who stand around outside the prison looking sad, holding candles, and acting like this is some kind of a tragedy.
The tragedy is that this vermin wasn’t exterminated twenty years ago.
He needed killin’
his lawyers had sought a last minute reprieve from the courts, arguing that new forensic medical evidence showed he could not have kidnapped her because she was already dead when he stuffed her in the trunk of her car.
Lawyers!
Burn in Hell William Earl.
NEXT!
> I remember back in the bad old days of the 1960’s when an outgoing governor would commute all death sentences to life in prison. Glad those days are over.
Some years back Governor Cuomo of NY would not allow a convicted murderer from another state to be extradited and executed until he served a life sentence in NY for another killing in NY. When Governor Pataki took office from Cuomo, his first act was to pardon the slime from his life sentence. The other state took possession of the convicted murderer and within 2 weeks justice was carried out.
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