RESERVATIONS FOR MARCH*

11-Bobby Cook-Texas
12-Delma Banks, Jr.-Texas
13-Michael Thompson-Alabama
13-David Myers-Ohio
18-Louis Jones- Indiana (The Feds)
18-Walanzo Robinson-Oklahoma
20-Keith Clay-Texas
20-James Taylor-Ohio
25-John Hooker-Oklahoma
26-Ernest Martin-Ohio
26-James Colburn-Texas
27-David Jay Brown- Oklahoma

*-Reservations are subject to, and no doubt will, change.

FLORIDA LAST MEAL
AMOS KING
February 26, 2003

Infamous Amos....

Last Meal: King was not offered a special meal because he already had received two of them during previous stays.

The skinny: King was executed for the rape and murder of a 68-year-old woman in her home 26 years ago. He killed her after slipping away from a neighboring work-release prison, then set her home on fire. King was caught, in bloody clothing, trying to return to the prison at about the time firefighters and police arrived at Brady's home. He fought with a counselor, who was stabbed 15 times with a knife.

Close Calls: King's insistence that DNA testing could clear him of the raping and killing led Gov. Jeb Bush to issue a stay 90 minutes before King was to be executed Dec. 2. Bush lifted the stay this month after the tests yielded no new evidence. In the past, Gov. Bob Graham signed King's first execution warrant in 1981, and Gov. Bob Martinez signed another in 1988. Under Bush, his execution was stayed four times last year. The execution was delayed for about 30 minutes before the Supreme Court denied his final appeal.

Last words and such: "I would like the governor and the family to know I am an innocent man, and the state had evidence to that effect," King said in his final statement. "I'm sorry for the victim's family, for all the things we have gone through."

The victim's family: The victim's niece had planned to attend the execution but had prepared for disappointment after enduring years of delays and stays. ``Why did she have to die and somebody who was never productive got to live all these years?''

Aftermath: King, who converted to Buddhism while serving on death row, was accompanied by a Buddhist priest throughout the day on Wednesday. After an autopsy, his body will be released to another Buddhist priest who is expected to have it cremated.

Factoid: King became the 55th inmate to die since Florida reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

Last year, only 13 states carried out executions, the fewest since 1994.

TEXAS LAST MEAL
RICHARD HEAD WILLIAMS
February 25, 2003

Richard Head kills crack head...

Last Meal: two chili cheese dogs, two cheeseburgers, two orders of onion rings with French dressing, a turkey salad with French fries, egg rolls, chocolate cake, apple pie, butter pecan ice cream, one peach, three Dr. Pepper sodas, jalapenos, ketchup and mayonnaise.

The skinny: Williams was executed for in the murder-for-hire killing of a wheelchair-bound woman that was paid for by a couple who had taken out a life insurance policy on the victim. The victim was a crack addict who had been paralyzed when her husband shot her 22 years before. The couple let the victim live with them, had taken out a $25,000 life insurance policy on her. Testimony at Williams' trial showed that they offered him $12,000 from the policy to kill her. Williams, who had just been freed from a 10-year burglary sentence, told police he planned to use the money to start a rap recording studio.

The switch-a-roo: The couple, who are serving life sentences, took Williams and the victim, ostensibly to buy cocaine. Instead, Williams slashed the woman's throat, stabbed her repeatedly and left her lying in the street. The couple sped away in their car, leaving $400 at a friend's house for Williams. When Williams discovered the couple had shortchanged him, he swore he was going to murder them.,

Last words and such: "We came a long way through the tragedy -- from hate to love and I would like to apologize for the pain I have caused all my families on both sides." "I was not a monster like they said I was. I made a mistake and this mistake cost -- but they won't cost no more."

Factoid: The couple is serving life sentences for the crime. Williams was the ninth inmate put to death in the state this year, which is by far the nation's death penalty leader and the 298th since the state restored the death penalty in 1982.

DME NEED YOUR HELP!!!

Since we would rather stick needles in our eyes than to see "The Life of David Gale", if any of our readers (either of you) see the movie...let's us know if there is a last meal and what it was. We keep meaning to get Puff Daddy's last meal in "Monster's Ball", but we always tune in after he is dead and with Hallie Berry in a natural state (and I don't mean Arkansas).

The latest in the Empire State...

Highlights....

NEW YORK NOT USING DEATH PENALTY

Despite 1995 reinstatement, prosecutors here rarely seek it

Eight years after New York reinstated the death penalty, not only has no one been executed, but prosecutors have been hesitant to pursue it.

There have been 424 first-degree murder indictments statewide since the statute was reinstated in 1995, yet prosecutors have filed notice to seek the death penalty just 48 times, according to the state Capital Defender’s Office. And of those cases, only 17 went to trial.

...The reasons they cited for the small number of death-penalty trials in the state are substantial and intangible:

The money and time involved in death-penalty cases. (Only one defendant has made it all the way through the court system since the statute was enacted.)

A defense system more well equipped and formidable than in other states.

A falling murder rate.

New Yorkers’ lack of appetite for executions.

....By far, Texas leads the nation in executions with 297 since 1976 when the U.S. Supreme Court said states could bring back the death penalty. The court had outlawed the punishment more than a decade earlier. Virginia is second with 87. Arizona has the most of any non-Southern or non-border state with 22. Pennsylvania, with three, is the only Northeastern state to have executed prisoners. Illinois had executed 12 before its death row was cleared.

....prosecutors said the statistics reflect well on them: They are seeking death only in heinous cases.

The whole article is good reading...

IT'S NICE WHEN THE SON FOLLOWS IN THE FATHER'S FOOTSTEPS...

France was not always so civil...

The notebooks of a French executioner who sliced off the heads of almost 400 people will go under the auctioneer's hammer in Paris Wednesday.

Anatole Deibler meticulously charts his work at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century on some 2,000 pages, noting places, dates, the weather, the names and crimes of the condemned and details of their trials.

"At the moment of his execution, (the man) cried out in a loud voice: 'Long live anarchy! Death to the cops!'," he wrote of an execution in 1925.

In choosing his profession, Deibler followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. He brought down the guillotine on 395 men and women -- from petty thieves to presidential assassins -- in a career that spanned 40 years.

"He showed himself a meticulous artisan of death, discreet to the point of obsession," notes the Drouot auction house where the sale will take place.

Deibler died of a heart attack on an underground platform in 1939, on his way to another execution. Six months later France banned public executions, confining them to a prison courtyard, where they continued until 1977. France abolished the death penalty in 1981.

The 14 notebooks, in two series entitled "Executions" and "Condemnations," are expected to fetch up to 15,000 euros ($16,000).