The Abolishment Movement

JoyK · Joined: 26 Jul 2007 Posts: 869 Location: Michigan

Alabama executes man for 1980 beating death

Thu Jul 26, 2007 8:45PM EDT

By Peggy Gargis

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - Alabama executed longtime death-row inmate Darrell Grayson by lethal injection on Thursday for killing an 86-year-old woman in 1980.

It was the state's second execution of the year and its 37th since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976.

Grayson, 46, was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. CDT (2316 GMT) at Atmore prison, said Alabama Department of Corrections spokesman Brian Corbett.

He asked for a last meal of a cheese omelette and fresh sliced tomatoes, said the word "peace" and flashed a peace sign shortly before he died, Corbett said.

Grayson was convicted in 1981 of burgling the home of Annie Laura Orr of Montevallo, Alabama, on Christmas Eve the previous year and beating her to death.

Grayson and accomplice Victor Kennedy, who was convicted of beating and raping Orr and executed in 1999, gave details of the crime in confessions and at trial.

Grayson said later he was too drunk to remember what happened that night and had passed out.

Lee Rawlings Binion, Orr's granddaughter, witnessed the execution on behalf of the victim's family, Corbett said.

"The family of Annie Laura Orr has seen the final chapter of this lengthy 27-year struggle come to an end. We are grateful that justice has finally been served," said Binion.

Anti-death penalty groups appealed to Alabama Gov. Bob Riley for a stay of execution until DNA testing could be done. They said the state only provided Grayson's original lawyer, Richard Bell, with $500 to hire experts and conduct the defense.

But Riley rejected a plea for DNA testing and said in a statement on Wednesday that "no new evidence has come to light that would warrant either a reprieve or a commutation."

"DNA testing would not exonerate him even if there is no DNA evidence that he raped Mrs. Orr. Non-DNA evidence of the convicted murderer's guilt ... is abundant," Riley said.

"The killer's own numerous confessions, his own trial testimony where he himself admitted guilt and the overwhelming physical evidence, left a jury no doubt he perpetrated a cruel and monstrous crime upon a helpless elderly woman," he said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2625141920070727?pageNumber=2

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Marion · Joined: 28 Jul 2007 Posts: 195 Location: The Netherlands

Rethink death penalty, ex-DA says

A moratorium would allow study

Saturday, July 28, 2007
NANCY WILSTACH, Birmingham News staff writer

The prosecutor who put Darrell Grayson on Death Row 27 years ago now says he would like Alabama to rethink capital punishment.

The day after Grayson's execution by lethal injection Thursday for the 1980 rape-murder of Annie Laurie Orr of Montevallo, Billy Hill said he had no doubt of Grayson's guilt but still would like to see changes in Alabama's laws.

"I would welcome a moratorium on the death penalty and the appointment of a study group," Hill said. "I don't question that the state has the right to do it. I do question whether it is a wise and humane use of our resources."

Hill, 56, was the district attorney for Shelby, Coosa and Clay counties from 1979 until 1986. Today he is Shelby County public defender. The move from prosecution to defense has helped him change his perspective, Hill said.

As it stands now, Hill said, murder can become capital murder in Alabama for a wider array of reasons than in any other state. Some examples are when murder is combined with a robbery, rape or other violent felony; or when there is more than one victim; or when the victim is younger than 12.

"Do you realize that if two people are arguing on a street corner and one of them pulls a gun and kills the other one, that is simple murder?" Hill said. "But, take the same scenario and put one of them in a car, and it becomes a capital case."

Victims' families suffer, too, with executions often set and canceled several times during repeated appeals. "It just never goes away for the victim's family," Hill said.

"In some cases there is the question of certainty. Two guys on Alabama's Death Row have been exonerated. With the limited resources the state has available, so many are sentenced to death who have not had the benefit of top-flight representation," he said.

And finally, "in 30 years of observing violent offenders," he said, "I find three factors present in almost all of them: some kind of childhood abuse, either physical or sexual; some type of chemical dependence, either alcohol or drugs; and neurological damage."

The state needs to provide the costly resources such as testing for those problems if it wants to apply the penalty fairly, he said.

Hill said he is not advocating turning the offenders loose. "A lot of people do not realize that in Alabama life without parole means you are not leaving prison except with your toes turned up," he said.

"And, too, remember that we are the only modern, industrialized nation in the world that still has capital punishment," he said.

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