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Can you imagine - being <span style="font-weight: bold">FORCIBLY</span> carried into the death chamber ... dang - VA and TX aint no joke.
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<span style="font-weight: bold">Jamaican man executed in the US </span>
Friday, 20 February 2009
A Jamaican man who failed in a last minute bid to save his life was on Thursday night executed in Virginia in the United States.
[video:youtube]
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Edward Nathaniel Bell, 43, a purported drug dealer, who gunned down a police officer during a foot chase a decade ago, was put to death by lethal injection at the Greensville Correctional Centre.
<span style="color: #FF0000">
Bell, who declared his innocence, was forcibly carried into Virginia's death chamber.</span>
A Corrections department spokesman said he was pronounced dead at 9:11 p.m.
Bell was the 103rd Virginia inmate executed since capital punishment was reinstated in the state in 1976.
Last minute efforts to pressure Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine into granting Bell clemency failed.
The Governor said he found no compelling reason to stay the execution after reviewing the clemency petition and consulting with the judiciary.
However, the Jamaican man maintained that he did not shoot the cop.
Prosecutors said Bell was a flashy drug dealer who held a grudge against the policeman for arresting a Jamaican man two years earlier.
International diplomats who joined the lobby to save Bell said he may have suffered from mental retardation.
International standards and U.S. Supreme Court precedent prohibit executing the mentally retarded.
Bell was originally scheduled to be executed last April but benefited from stays in execution.
<span style="color: #FF0000">His family claimed that he was abused as a child but a psychological screening ordered prior to sentencing was not presented during that phase of his trial.</span>
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<span style="font-weight: bold">Jamaican man executed in the US </span>
Friday, 20 February 2009
A Jamaican man who failed in a last minute bid to save his life was on Thursday night executed in Virginia in the United States.
[video:youtube]
[/video] Edward Nathaniel Bell, 43, a purported drug dealer, who gunned down a police officer during a foot chase a decade ago, was put to death by lethal injection at the Greensville Correctional Centre.
<span style="color: #FF0000">
Bell, who declared his innocence, was forcibly carried into Virginia's death chamber.</span>
A Corrections department spokesman said he was pronounced dead at 9:11 p.m.
Bell was the 103rd Virginia inmate executed since capital punishment was reinstated in the state in 1976.
Last minute efforts to pressure Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine into granting Bell clemency failed.
The Governor said he found no compelling reason to stay the execution after reviewing the clemency petition and consulting with the judiciary.
However, the Jamaican man maintained that he did not shoot the cop.
Prosecutors said Bell was a flashy drug dealer who held a grudge against the policeman for arresting a Jamaican man two years earlier.
International diplomats who joined the lobby to save Bell said he may have suffered from mental retardation.
International standards and U.S. Supreme Court precedent prohibit executing the mentally retarded.
Bell was originally scheduled to be executed last April but benefited from stays in execution.
<span style="color: #FF0000">His family claimed that he was abused as a child but a psychological screening ordered prior to sentencing was not presented during that phase of his trial.</span>
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