Miami (AFP) – A Florida man convicted of murdering two women he hired for sex was put to death by lethal injection on Tuesday, one of four executions to be carried out in the United States this week. Samuel Smithers, 72, was sentenced to death in 1999 for the 1996 killings of Christy Cowan and Denise Roach in Tampa. They had been beaten and strangled and their bodies were found in a pond. Smithers was executed at a Florida state prison at 6:15 pm (2215 GMT), the 14th execution in the southern state this year.
Another convicted murderer was also put to death by lethal injection in the midwestern state of Missouri on Tuesday. The execution of Lance Shockley, 48, was carried out at 6:13 pm (2313 GMT) for the 2005 murder of a police sergeant, Carl Graham. Graham was gunned down in an ambush at his home. The officer had been investigating a fatal car accident involving Shockley at the time. Shockley maintained his innocence, but his appeals were rejected by numerous courts, including the Supreme Court. Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe rejected his clemency request on Monday.
Two other executions are scheduled this week. Charles Crawford, 59, is to be put to death by lethal injection in Mississippi on Wednesday for the 1994 rape and murder of Kristy Ray, a 20-year-old college student. Richard Djerf, 55, is to be executed by lethal injection in Arizona on Friday for the brutal 1993 murders of four members of a Phoenix family. In a letter last month apologizing for the crime, Djerf said he was ready to die and would not seek clemency. “If I can’t find reason to spare my life, what reason would anyone else have?” he wrote.
There have been 37 executions in the United States this year, the most since 2013, when 39 inmates were put to death. Florida has carried out the most executions with 14, followed by Texas with five and South Carolina and Alabama with four. Thirty-one of this year’s executions have been carried out by lethal injection, two by firing squad, and four by nitrogen hypoxia, which involves pumping nitrogen gas into a face mask, causing the prisoner to suffocate. The use of nitrogen gas as a method of capital punishment has been denounced by United Nations experts as cruel and inhumane.
The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others — California, Oregon, and Pennsylvania — have moratoriums in place. President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and, on his first day in office, called for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes.”
© 2024 AFP
