ALABAMA EXECUTIONS

EXECUTION CARRIED OUT 2022 – OKLAHOMA GILBERT POSTELLE 02.18.2022


GILBERT POSTELLE

Gilbert Ray Postelle was pronounced dead by lethal injection at 10:14 a.m. Thursday morning. He’s the fourth death row inmate to be killed since the state resumed capital punishment in October after a six-year moratorium. He was 35.

Five media members were selected by a random draw to witness the execution: Sean Murphy (Associated Press), Nolan Clay (The Oklahoman), Wayne Stafford (KOKH), Storme Jones (KWTV) and Dylan Goforth (The Frontier).

The witnesses said the execution appeared to happen without any complications. Their accounts were largely in line with the December execution of Bigler Stouffer and the January execution of Donald Grant, but drastically different from the October execution of John Marion Grant, who convulsed two dozen times and vomited multiple times during his execution.

Postelle did not have any last words.

Swindle’s sister, Shelli Milner, made a statement following the execution.

“It’s never over for the families of the victims. Today is not a joyous day for anyone. Today did not end anyone’s suffering. Today did not put closure on anything,” Milner said. “To know that [Postelle] will never walk this earth again does give me a little more peace than I had yesterday, but I will never have peace knowing what he did to my brother Donnie, to Amy, to James and to Terry.”

There are no more executions scheduled in the state at this point. Pending the results of the upcoming trial over the constitutionality of the current lethal injection protocol later this month, the state may schedule more executions.

Death row inmate Gilbert Ray Postelle’s request for clemency was denied by the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board in a 4-1 vote in December 2021.

Postelle, then 19, shot and killed four people — 57-year-old James D. Alderson, 56-year-old Terry L. Smith, 49-year-old James “Donnie” Swindle Jr., and 26-year-old Amy J. Wright — in southeast Oklahoma City on Memorial Day in 2005. The assault included nearly 100 shots fired from two assault rifles.

He was convicted of the four murders and given the death sentence for two.

Three others were charged with conspiracy and four counts of first-degree murder in the slayings. His brother, David Bradford Postelle, was sentenced to life in prison and their father, Earl Bradford Postelle, was ruled incompetent to stand trial in 2006. Another man, Randal Wade Byus, agreed to cooperate with authorities and pleaded guilty to reduced charges in 2008.

Postelle and his family believed one of the victims were responsible for a 2004 motorcycle accident, which left the elder Postelle physically and mentally disabled.

Gilbert Postelle’s attorney said he suffered from years of methamphetamine abuse that began around the age of 12. In 2021, he testified that he had been using meth for days leading up to the killings and doesn’t remember much about the crimes.

Last month, attorneys for Donald Grant and Postelle argued that the state’s lethal injection protocol exposed the two men to a constitutionally unacceptable risk of severe pain, citing the October 2021 execution of John Grant, who convulsed and vomited before he died.

Oklahoma’s method of execution — lethal injection — has been criticized as painful and terrifying, with claims it induces a sense of drowning comparable to the torture tactic of waterboarding.

Oklahoma held off on lethal injections for nearly six years after two botched executions. The state resumed the practice last fall, killing John Grant in October, Bigler Stouffer in December and Donald Grant in January.

The three-drug cocktail is being reviewed for constitutionality in district court in a trial that begins on Feb. 28.

Postelle’s last meal included 20 chicken nuggets, three large fries, one crispy chicken sandwich, one large cola, and one caramel frappe.

EXECUTION CARRIED OUT 2022-ALABAMA MATTHEW REEVES 01.27.2022


Matthew Reeves

Matthew Reeves offered no final words and only few movements as his execution was carried out Thursday evening at Holman Prison in Atmore.

Reeves was pronounced dead around 9:24 p.m., according to Commissioner John Hamm. His execution began around 9:03 p.m., after a stay was lifted at 7:25 p.m. from the nation’s highest court.

Reeves had no final words, no final meal and no spiritual advisor present for his execution, which took place despite claims that he was intellectually disabled.

As the execution began, Reeves grimaced and rose his head slightly to look at the IV in his arm, before he laid his head back down. Around 9:09 p.m., he closed his eyes, though his abdomen continued moving.

Shortly after that time, a prison official performed a consciousness test which consisted of a hand wave over his face and an arm pinch.

Before 9:15 p.m., Reeves stopped moving.

After Reeves was pronounced dead, Hamm read a statement from the family of Willie Johnson to gathered media witnesses.

“After 26 years, justice has finally been served,” Hamm read from the family’s statement. “Our family can now have some closure.”

Reeves was executed for the murder of Willie Johnson, a man who picked up Reeves and other individuals on the side of the highway in Selma in November of 1996.

EXECUTION LIST 2020


DateNumber Since 1976StateNameAgeRaceVictim RaceMethodDrug ProtocolYears from Sentence to Execution
1/15/201513TXJohn Gardner64W1 White femaleLethal Injection1-drug (Pentobarbital)13
1/29/201514GADonnie Lance65W1 White male, 1 White femaleLethal Injection1-drug (Pentobarbital)21
2/6/201515TXAbel Ochoa47L2 Latinx femalesLethal Injection1-drug (Pentobarbital)17
2/20/201516TNNicholas Todd Sutton58W1 White maleElectrocutionN/A34
3/5/201517ALNathaniel Woods43B3 White malesLethal Injection3-drug (Midazolam)14
5/19/201518MOWalter Barton64W1 White femaleLethal injection1-drug (Pentobarbital)26
7/8/201519TXBilly Joe Wardlow45W1 White maleLethal injection1-drug (Pentobarbital)25
7/14/201520FederalDaniel Lewis Lee47W1 White male, 2 White femaleLethal injection1-drug (Pentobarbital)21
7/16/201521FederalWesley Ira Purkey68W1 White femaleLethal injection1-drug (Pentobarbital)17
7/17/201522FederalDustin Lee Honken52W2 White males, 3 White femalesLethal injection1-drug (Pentobarbital)14
8/26/201523FederalLezmond Mitchell38NA2 Native American femalesLethal injection1-drug (Pentobarbital)17
8/28/201524FederalKeith Dwayne Nelson45W1 White femaleLethal injection1-drug (Pentobarbital)18
9/22/201525FederalWilliam Emmett LeCroy50W1 White femaleLethal injection1-drug (Pentobarbital)16
9/24/201526FederalChristopher Andre Vialva40B1 White male, 1 White femaleLethal injection1-drug (Pentobarbital)20
11/19/201527FederalOrlando Hall49B1 Black femaleLethal injection1-drug (Pentobarbital)25
12/10/201528FederalBrandon Bernard40B1 White male, 1 White femaleLethal injection1-drug (Pentobarbital)20
12/11/201529FederalAlfred Bourgeois56B1 Black femaleLethal injection1-drug (Pentobarbital)18

Executions Scheduled for 2018


Executions Scheduled for 2018


Month State Prisoner
January
2 PA Sheldon Hannibal — STAYED
3 OH John Stumpf — RESCHEDULED
3 OH William Montgomery — RESCHEDULED
18 TX Anthony Shore
25 AL Vernon Madison
30 TX William Rayford
February
1 TX John Battaglia
13 OH Warren K. Henness — RESCHEDULED
13 OH Robert Van Hook — RESCHEDULED
13 OH Raymond Tibbetts
22 TX Thomas Whitaker
March
14 OH Douglas Coley — RESCHEDULED
14 OH Warren K. Henness — RESCHEDULED
20 MO Russell Bucklew
27 TX Rosendo Rodriguez
April
11 OH Melvin Bonnell — RESCHEDULED
11 OH William Montgomery
May
30 OH Stanley Fitzpatrick — RESCHEDULED
June
27 OH Angelo Fears — RESCHEDULED
July
18 OH Robert Van Hook
August
1 OH David A. Sneed — RESCHEDULED
September
13 OH Cleveland R. Jackson
October
10 OH James Derrick O’Neal — RESCHEDULED
November
14 OH John David Stumpf — RESCHEDULED

Us – EXECUTIONS 2014 (UPDATE)


Last updated on March 20, 2014
(Dates are subject to change due to stays and appeals.)

 

 

Month

State

Inmate

March

 

 

19

OH

Gregory Lott – Stayed

20

FL

Robert Henry EXECUTED

20

OK

Clayton Lockett – EXECUTED (APRIL 29)

26

MO

Jeffrey Ferguson EXECUTED

26

MS

Charles Crawford Stayed as execution date had not been affirmed by state court.

27

OK

Charles Warner – Update – stay was lifted and rescheduled for April 29.

27

TX

Anthony Doyle EXECUTED

27

MS

Michelle Byrom STAYED

April

 

 

3

TX

Tommy Sells EXECUTED

9

TX

Ramiro Hernandez (Foreign National) EXECUTED

16

TX

Jose Villegas EXECUTED

16

PA

Stephen Edmiston – STAYED

22

TN

Nikolus Johnson STAYED

23

FL

Robert Hendrix EXECUTED

May

 

 

13

TX

Robert Campbell

21

TX

Robert Pruett

28

OH

Arthur Tyler

29

TX

Edgardo Cubas (Foreign National) – STAYED

August

 

 

6

OH

William Montgomery

October

 

 

7

TN

Billy Irick

15

OH

Raymond Tibbetts

November

 

 

26

IN

William Gibson – STAY LIKELY

December

 

 

9

TN

Ed Zagorski

Alabama executes Andrew Lacke


ATMORE, Alabama – Andrew Lackey was executed by lethal injection at Holman Correctional Facility Thursday evening for the 2005 murder of an 80-year-old World War II veteran he was trying to rob.

Lackey was pronounced dead at 6:25 p.m.

Four of Lackey’s family members, including his mother, father, brother and aunt, were in attendance.

A jury convicted Lackey, 29, of the Halloween night murder in 2005 of Charles Newman, 80, at Newman’s Limestone County home. Lackey beat, shot and stabbed Newman. Authorities say he was seeking money.

Lackey became the first inmate executed in Alabama since Christopher T. Johnson of Escambia County received a lethal injection Oct. 20, 2011.

A Limestone County jury convicted Lackey in 2008. He had dropped all appeals and asked for his execution to be scheduled.

Lackey, wearing glasses and with trim, dark hair, was already strapped to a gurney when a curtain opened at 6 p.m. to allow witnesses to see him. He looked around briefly, then laid his head on the pillow.

Holman Warden Gary Hetzell read the execution order and asked Lackey if he had anything to say.

“No sir, I don’t,” Lackey replied.

Lackey’s mother, father, brother and aunt witnessed the execution in silence, his mother and father holding hands. The four had visited Lackey earlier today, Department of Corrections spokesman Brian Corbett said.
A man and two women witnessed the execution on behalf of the victim’s family. The Department of Corrections did not have their names.

Shortly after Lackey declined to make a statement, Holman Chaplain Chris Summers approached the gurney, touched Lackey’s hand and spoke to him. Lackey nodded and Summers knelt to pray.

The drugs seemed to to take effect within a couple of minutes. Lackey’s chest and abdomen convulsed slightly for several minutes. That was followed by what appeared to be several minutes of shallow breathing. He remained still and quiet for several minutes until a corrections officer closed the curtain at 6:15 p.m.

Source: Al.com, July 25, 2013

1st Alabama. execution since 2011 set for Thursday


July 20, 2013

This March 18, 2009 photo provided by the Alabama Dept. of Corrections shows inmate Andrew Reid Lackey. Alabama’s second execution in almost two years is scheduled for Thursday, July 25, 2013 at Holman Prison in Atmore, Ala.. Court records show that 30-year-old Andrew Lackey asked the state to set his execution date, and Alabama has not taken action to stop it. Photo: Alabama Dept. Of Corrections

MONTGOMERY, Ala.  — Alabama’s second execution in almost two years is scheduled for Thursday at Holman Prison in Atmore.

Court records show that 30-year-old Andrew Lackey asked the state to set his execution date, and has not taken action to stop it.

Lackey is scheduled to die by lethal injection at Holman Prison in Atmore for the beating and shooting death of 80-year-old Charles Newman during a 2005 Halloween night robbery at Newnan’s home in Limestone County. Lackey is to be executed by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Thursday.

Lackey would be the first inmate executed in Alabama since Christopher T. Johnson of Escambia County received a lethal injection Oct. 20, 2011. He was the sixth inmate executed in 2011.

The state’s executions have been slowed partly because of a legal dispute over the drugs used in executions.

Lackey’s execution was set after he wrote a letter to the Alabama Supreme Court saying that he had “an odd request.”

“Please set me an execution date. I do not wish to pursue any further appeals for my death sentence,” Lackey said in the letter to the justices, according to court records. Lackey said he would not file any further appeals.

Court records show Lackey has taken no action to stop the execution.

In a letter to Assistant Attorney General Richard Anderson, Lackey says, “I do not know what else I can do. Will you please help me get an execution date.”

Court records show that Newman made an emergency phone call to the Athens Police Department on Halloween night 2005 in which he could be heard saying, “Don’t do that,” ”Leave me alone” and “What do you want.”

The police operator then heard the apparent assailant repeatedly ask, “Where’s the vault?” according to the records.

Bryan Stevenson, an attorney with the Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative, said both the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals and the trial court have ruled that the state can go ahead with Lackey’s execution.

Stevenson said he and other attorneys opposed to Lackey being executed and “have argued that he is mentally ill.”

“Our point is that he needs to be examined,” Stevenson said.

US – UPCOMING EXECUTIONS JULY


July
10 TX Rigoberto Avila   Execution moved 2014
16 TX John Quintanilla EXECUTED
18 TX Vaughn Ross Executed
25 AL Andrew Lackey
31 TX Douglas Feldman

US – Executions Scheduled for 2013 June 18 – November



Month State Inmate
June
18 OK James DeRosa  – executed
24 FL Marshall Gore    STAYED
25 OK Brian Davis Executed
26 TX Kimberly McCarthy executed
July
10 TX Rigoberto Avila – execution moved to January1, 2014
16 TX John Quintanilla executed
18 TX Vaughn Ross executed
25 AL Andrew Lackey
31 TX Douglas Feldman
August
7 OH Billy Slagle
18-24 CO Nathan Dunlap – Stayed
September
19 TX Robert Garza
25 OH Harry Mitts
26 TX Arturo Diaz
October
9 TX Michael Yowell
November
14 OH Ronald Phillips

Arizona death-row inmate wants his execution delayed until state has new governor – Samuel Villegas Lopez


Update, June 22 Source : http://www.azcentral.com

Arizona’s Board of Executive Clemency voted 4-0 Friday not to recommend clemency or a reprieve for convicted murderer Samuel Lopez, who is scheduled to be executed Wednesday.

Also on Friday, Arizona’s Supreme Court denied a request by Lopez’s attorneys for a stay of execution, leaving a pending appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court as his last chance for a reprieve.

Lopez was sentenced to death for the brutal murder of Estefana Holmes in central Phoenix in 1986. After a “terrible and prolonged struggle,” Lopez raped and sodomized her, stabbed her more than 23 times in the chest and head, and slashed her throat, according to court records.

The board’s vote followed impassioned pleas both for and against his execution.

“He didn’t just murder Essie, he murdered our family,” said Denise Evans, Holmes’s daughter-in-law, saying that her devastated husband drank himself to death after her killing.

More than a dozen members of Holmes’s family testified, most describing how the murders continue to affect them, and saying the execution would bring them closure.

“Why should he be allowed more time on this earth than our sister?” asked Sarah Arguijo Bryant.

Assistant Federal Public Defender Kelley Henry expressed her condolences, but told the board that because of poor lawyering, no court had heard the full story of Lopez’s poor and brutal upbringing, or of how his childhood abuse of various substances, as an escape, had left him mentally impaired. Neuropsychiatrist George Wood, describing that upbringing in clinical detail, said Lopez and his siblings essentially were brought up as “feral children.” He noted that two of Lopez’s brothers also faced the death penalty for their own crimes.

That background and impairment should have mitigated his sentence to life without parole, Henry said. Inevitably, when the death penalty is imposed “it’s not for the worst crime, it’s for the worst lawyer,” she said.

State prosecutors had provided the board members with color photos of Holmes and the murder scene. Board member Mel Thomas said he reviewed them closely before the hearing. “I tell you now, when I did this at home, I cried,” he said.

Lopez, who is being held at the Eyman state prison, did not take part in the hearing. He previously had been scheduled for execution May 15, but won a delay after the Arizona Supreme Court agreed that three new members of the clemency board hadn’t had adequate training when they first considered his bid for clemency last month. When Gov. Jan Brewer replaced three of the five board members, including the chairman, in April, the departing members said they had been ousted because she was unhappy with their votes to recommend clemency in certain cases.

Henry had sought another stay, arguing that the new members couldn’t give Lopez a fair hearing because they were improperly appointed and biased against him; but Friday the state supreme court denied her motion without comment. The U.S. Supreme Court had not acted Friday on a separate request for a stay filed by Lopez’s attorneys

June 20, 2012 Source :

PHOENIX — Attorneys for a death-row inmate set to be put to death in Arizona next week want the execution delayed until the state has a new governor, arguing in a Tuesday filing that Gov. Jan Brewer appointed “political cronies” to a clemency board in an unconstitutional, closed-door process.

In their filing in the Arizona Supreme Court, defense attorneys for death-row inmate Samuel Villegas Lopez argue that he can’t receive a fair hearing with the state’s clemency board, often an inmate’s last chance for mercy before an execution.

Brewer overhauled the board in April, a move that her spokesman Matt Benson said at the time was designed to “bring fresh insight and fresh blood” to the board.“The Arizona Supreme Court has already found these allegations to be without merit. The latest filing is more of the same,” Benson said in statement Tuesday evening. “Governor Brewer appropriately nominated qualified individuals to the Board of Executive Clemency, including a Democrat, and they were properly confirmed by the Arizona Senate. The governor and the Board of Executive Clemency have the right to defend themselves when named in a lawsuit in which spurious and sanctionable allegations are asserted.”

In their filing, Lopez’s attorneys argued that the new board members are “political cronies” appointed to ensure that they never vote for executions to be delayed or overturned.

The attorneys also argue that the selection committee for the new board members questioned potential members about how they would vote on controversial or high-profile cases in interviews that were closed to the public in violation of open-meetings laws.

“While the Governor may be free to appoint her political cronies to Arizona boards and commissions, and while political patronage may be an accepted part of Arizona government, the law at least requires that those actions be known to the public,” the filing said.

“Offensive to any reasonable notion of fairness, this denial of access to the clemency process would not have occurred in the sunlight of public scrutiny,” they wrote. “Mr. Lopez must now plead for mercy before a board constituted of a majority of members selected by that process.”

Lopez’s clemency hearing is set for Friday.

His attorneys also argue that statements made by Benson and newly appointed board Chairman Jesse Hernandez to reporters display clear bias against Lopez and a prejudgment of his request for mercy.

For instance, Benson told The Associated Press last month that defense attorneys were “attempting to further delay justice for the heinous crimes committed by their client 25 years ago.”

“Throwing together a host of trumped-up charges against a citizen board does not change that fact,” he said.

Hernandez has told the AP that the attorneys were “grandstanding” in filing a lawsuit against Brewer and the board in Maricopa County Superior Court over the new board members.

Hernandez did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

The Arizona Supreme Court already delayed Lopez’s execution once, on May 15, to give the new clemency board members time to undergo four weeks of training before they held a hearing about Lopez’s fate.

The court granted the delay on the grounds that Lopez was denied a fair chance for clemency because a majority of the board members had not undergone the training. The court rescheduled the May 16 execution for June 27.

Lopez faces a lethal injection at a state prison in Florence for the 1986 murder of Estefana Holmes. The Phoenix woman was raped, robbed and stabbed in what authorities described as a “terrible and prolonged struggle.