An inmate in a North Carolina prison today became the 1,000th person executed in the U.S. since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty almost 30 years ago.
Kenneth Lee Boyd, 57, was put to death by lethal injection at Central Prison in Raleigh, North Carolina, at 2 a.m. local time, according to an official in the warden’s office. Boyd was sentenced in 1994 for killing his wife, Julie Curry Boyd, and father-in-law, Thomas Dillard Curry.
North Carolina Governor Mike Easley last night denied Boyd’s clemency request after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal.
Boyd, a Vietnam veteran, hasn’t denied his crime, the Associated Press reported.
“Having carefully reviewed the facts and circumstances of these crimes and convictions, I find no compelling reason to grant clemency and overturn the unanimous jury verdicts affirmed by the state and federal courts,” Easley said in a statement yesterday.
North Carolina executed two prisoners last month, as well as two others earlier in the year.
Earlier this week, Virginia Governor Mark Warner spared the life of a killer who would have been the 1000th to be executed.
Warner on Nov. 29 granted clemency to Robin Lovitt because of lost DNA evidence.
Furman v. Georgia In 1972, the Supreme Court ruled the death penalty was “cruel and unusual” and violated the Eighth Amendment, in response to Furman v. Georgia. The court rejected the state of Georgia guidelines that allowed juries complete discretion in awarding death sentences.
Four years later, the high court reversed its ruling and approved sentencing guidelines in Florida, Georgia and Texas as constitutional, thus reinstating the death penalty. The court ruled capital punishment was permitted under the Eighth Amendment.
In March, the Supreme Court outlawed executions of murderers who were under 18 at the time of the crime, saying the practice was inconsistent with the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. A decision in 1989 has allowed executions of 16- and 17-year-old killers.
Thirty-eight U.S. states permit executions, while 12 don’t, according to the American Civil Liberties Union’s Web site.
The European Union, most of South America and Canada have abolished the death penalty, said Stanford’s Marshall, a former legal director of Northwestern University’s Center for Wrongful Convictions.
