A Jourdanton man was killed early Friday after he was shocked by 69,000 volts of electricity as officials said he was stealing copper wire from an Atascosa County substation.

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SCOTUS refused an appeal from 47-year-old Hank Skinner. He faces lethal injection March 24 for the 1993 New Year's Eve killings of 40-year-old Twila Jean Busby and her two grown sons at their home in Pampa.

In case you have forgotten, Skinner hid a cell phone in a special place while on death row. Details.

A state district judge has set an execution date for David Lee Powell, who fatally shot an Austin police officer more than 30 years ago during a routine traffic stop.

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And this is what hair styles were like back then:

During his final statement, Sigala asked for forgiveness from the slain couple's relatives who attended the execution.

"I have no reason for why I did it," Sigala said. "I don't understand why I did it. I hope that you can live the rest of your lives without hate."

Nine minutes after the drugs took effect, at 6:20 p.m., he was pronounced dead at the state prison in Huntsville.

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[This message was edited by JB on 03-03-10 at .]

It was crafted for such evil individuals as Sigala. His crime was random and horrific: he inflicted terror, pain, and humiliation on a marvelous young couple.

Officials say an Ohio inmate who intentionally overdosed on pills hours before his scheduled execution has returned to prison and is on suicide watch.

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Reynolds' execution for the 1994 murder of his neighbor near Akron has been rescheduled to next week.

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If you knew your victim�s friends and relatives were watching your execution, would it change what you said just before the lethal cocktail started flowing?

That�s the question behind this recent study of Texas�s death row inmates� final words. The hypothesis: That the presence of relatives and friends of victims during the execution more often provokes the condemned to offer expressions of guilt, or words of contrition and remorse.

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Thirty-one-year-old Joshua Maxwell, his voice breaking, apologized repeatedly in the seconds before the state put him to death for the October 2000 slaying of Bexar County sheriff's Sgt. Rudy Lopes.

Maxwell said killing him for Lopes' death was "creating more victims" and "is not gonna change anything."

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On Thursday night, Paul Warner Powell, 31, was executed in Virginia's electric chair. The Jan. 29, 1999, murder of one sister and the rape and near-slaying of the other in Manassas were among the most notorious crimes in the region's recent history.

"I need to know that he's gone, that we don't have to deal with this anymore," said Kristie Reed, now 25 and an advocate for rape victims. "I was totally against the death penalty before this happened, and I didn't know why people would want to do it. But those people haven't been through what we've been through. Now I'm totally for it. He definitely deserves to die. He needs to die for what he did to Stacie."

In the end, Powell was silent. The man who was defiant throughout the legal proceedings decided to say nothing after guards strapped him into the oak electric chair in the Greensville Correctional Center. He stared ahead when asked whether he wanted to say anything.

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The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted 7-0 Monday to reject a clemency request for convicted killer Hank Skinner, who faces execution later this week for killing his girlfriend and her two adults sons more than 16 years ago.

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Alix's choirboy days were long past when, on the morning of Jan. 3, 1998, he accosted at gunpoint a young woman in the parking lot of her home, stuffed her into a car trunk, drove her to an ATM where he unsuccessfully tried to use her bank card, sexually assaulted her, returned to her home to steal electronics and, when caught in the act, fatally shot her brother.

In the recent interview, Alix claimed that he sold, but did not use, drugs and that the man he worked for stuffed victims into car trunks and drove them to ATM machines. Alix said he did not sexually assault Bridgeford's sister.

Alix, 34, his court appeals exhausted, is set to be executed Tuesday for the murder of Eric Bridgeford, 23.

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"I know I messed up," Alix told The Associated Press recently from death row. "I killed the dude. I wasn't trying to but I did. The dude wasn't bothering me. I was bothering him. I don't want to die. I'm remorseful. But I won't apologize."

Alix, 34, received lethal injection for the slaying of 23-year-old Eric Bridgeford, who interrupted Alix as he robbed the apartment of Bridgeford's sister. The sister also had been abducted and raped in what authorities said was part of a six-month series of crimes by Alix more than 11 years ago.

The execution was the fifth this year in Texas, the nation's busiest capital punishment state. [How many times must reporters repeat this? And, who decided it must be part of every DP story?]

"I'm not the monster they painted me to be," Alix said from the death chamber gurney, saying he "messed up and made poor choices." He denied responsibility for several rapes and said he "did no drugs."

"It is what it is," he said. "I've got peace in my heart."

Seven minutes later, at 6:20 p.m. CDT, he was pronounced dead.

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Kentucky has executed rarely since the reinstatement of the death penalty three decades ago, but a half-dozen inmates could exhaust their appeals by the end of the year.

The state is on the verge of re-enacting the process that uses a three-drug cocktail to execute inmates, and could start setting execution dates for multiple inmates by early summer. Among those whose appeals have run out are Ralph Stevens Baze, convicted in 1992 of killing Powell County Deputy Arthur Briscoe and Sheriff Steve Bennett.

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The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal Monday from Texas death row inmate Delma Banks, who argued he didn�t receive a fair trial when he was convicted in 1980 of killing a teenager.
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Banks has spent nearly 30 years on Texas death row awaiting execution.

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"Today the jury sent out a message," prosecutor Denise Bradley said. "If you kill a police officer, you will have to pay the price."

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[P.S. I am not related to Denise. But, I did work with her in Houston, and she is a darn good prosecutor.]

The U.S. Supreme Court has cleared the way for an execution date to be set for the last remaining death row inmate connected to the notorious 1993 murder of two Houston teenage girls.

The high court Monday denied the appeal of Peter Anthony Cantu, 34, one of five young men given a death sentence for the rape and killing of Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena, who were abducted off railroad tracks near T.C. Jester Park that they were using for a shortcut as they walked home late on the night of June 24. Cantu, who was 18 at the time, was the purported ringleader of a youth gang that had been drinking and fighting in the woods near the tracks during an initiation ceremony.

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"I didn't kill her," Berkley said in a soft voice.

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Berkley has requested a final meal of two BLT cheeseburgers, two jalape�o cheeseburgers, fried okra, chocolate and vanilla ice cream, and two root beers, said Michelle Lyons, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

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"Death before dishonor. Warden, let her rip. Thank you for coming, Irene," he said.

He said nothing to Sophia Martinez's family.

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