The next scheduled execution in Texas won’t take place until at least January, so the book is closed on 2014, with ten executions carried out this year in the most active death penalty state in the union. Sixteen prisoners were executed in Texas in 2013, and 15 in 2012.
Texas is also notable for keeping a record of the final words uttered by each inmate as a lethal injection is applied. Other publications have noted this and published some selections, but you rarely see prisoner last words paired with the offenses that they committed. Looking at that combined information is oddly compelling.
Let me be clear: I loathe the death penalty. I would rather every single one of these people were still rotting away in a prison cell somewhere. Capital punishment in the form of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole not only assures punishment, but it also assures that a mistaken prosecution can be undone. Some of the crimes detailed here are horrific. But others are situational, committed in the heat of the moment, and raise a question whether they would be tried as capital crimes in other states.
In the case of low-IQ objections to an execution, we’ve noted it. But mostly, we’ve tried to summarize the offenses here as sparingly as possible. It’s just the facts, and then the final words, for the 41 prisoners put to death in the last three years. A note about some of the final utterances — prisoners will sometimes say something about the feeling of drugs entering their system before they lose consciousness. This is noted in the record as well.
READ MORE:http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/12/last-exit-the-crimes-and-final-words-of-all-prisoners-texas-put-to-death-in-the-last-three-years/
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