softheart
05-16-2003, 10:08 AM
May 16
FLORIDA----execution
Tampa killer executed
Newton Carlton Slawson, convicted of killing 4 members of a Tampa family
and a fetus, was executed by injection Friday after a 13-hour delay while
his mental competency was questioned.
Slawson was pronounced dead at 7:10 a.m., officials said. The execution
came 14 years after the killings and 6 years after he began the process to
drop his court appeals.
Slawson, 48, was convicted in the April 11, 1989, shooting deaths of
Gerald and Peggy Wood, who was 8 1/2 months pregnant, and their 2 young
children, Glendon, 3, and Jennifer, 4. Slawson sliced Peggy Wood's body
with a knife and pulled out her fetus, which had 2 gunshot wounds and
multiple cuts, court records show.
After the attack, Peggy Wood crawled down the stairs of their garage
apartment, across a backyard to her mother's home and told her," Newton
did it." She died in her mother's arms.
Just an hour before Slawson's scheduled execution Thursday, Gov. Jeb Bush
issued a temporary stay so that 3 psychiatrists could examine whether
Slawson was competent to be executed. Those psychiatrists reported to Bush
around midnight and said they found Slawson aware of what the death
sentence meant.
The standard for competency is understanding that execution will result in
death and why the sentence is being imposed. Bush lifted the stay early
Friday morning, prison spokesman Sterling Ivey said.
The stay came after Bush's office received a letter from Slawson's former
attorneys, Craig Alldredge and Brian Donerly, who challenged the condemned
man's sanity.
The attorneys said Slawson was mentally ill at the time of the slayings
and remains insane. Earlier this week, Donerly accused the state of
"helping the mentally ill commit suicide."
Slawson, who dropped his appeals in 2001 and asked for execution, had
eaten his last meal, read from a Star Trek novel and visited with family
members for the final time when given news of the stay. He was visibly
upset by the delay, Ivey said.
"He wanted the sentence to be carried out," Ivey said.
At a court hearing in Tampa last month, Slawson told Circuit Judge Rex
Barbas he wanted to be executed.
"Judge, let's just end this please," he said.
After his meeting with the psychiatrists ended around 10 p.m. Thursday,
Slawson went to sleep and slept through the night, Ivey said.
In his trial, prosecutors claimed Slawson had fantasies about dismembering
women. When he was arrested, police found bloody clothing, a bloody knife,
a .357 revolver with blood on it, an assault rifle, 180 rounds of
ammunition and a Penthouse magazine in which had drawn images of slit
bellies on some of the nude photographs.
Defense attorneys argued that Gerald Wood had slipped crack cocaine into
Slawson's beer, sending an unstable man into a killing rage.
For the murders, Slawson received four death sentences, plus a 30-year
sentence on a manslaughter conviction for the death of the fetus.
Since 1990, 6 of the 34 inmates executed have dropped their appeals. 4 of
the 11 executed since 2002, have volunteered for execution. Abe Bonowitz,
director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said Slawson
and other death row inmates who have volunteered for execution are
mentally ill.
"The only time the state will bend over backwards is when a prisoner wants
to kill himself," Bonowitz said. "We consider it an assisted suicide."
Last fall, 2 inmates -- serial killer Aileen Wuornos and triple murderer
Rigoberto Sanchez-Velasco -- were put to death after dropping their
appeals. The judge also ordered mental exams for them in the days before
their executions.
Slawson becomes the 56th person executed since Florida resumed executions
in 1979 and the 2nd to die this year. He was the 13th person executed
under a death warrant signed by Bush.
Florida trails Texas (304), Virginia (88), Oklahoma (62), and Missouri
(60) in the number of executions carried out since the death penalty was
re-legalized in America on July 2, 1976.
Slawson becomes the 34th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in
the USA and the 854th overall since America resumed capital punishment on
January 17, 1977.
(sources: Associated Press & Rick Halperin)
FLORIDA----execution
Tampa killer executed
Newton Carlton Slawson, convicted of killing 4 members of a Tampa family
and a fetus, was executed by injection Friday after a 13-hour delay while
his mental competency was questioned.
Slawson was pronounced dead at 7:10 a.m., officials said. The execution
came 14 years after the killings and 6 years after he began the process to
drop his court appeals.
Slawson, 48, was convicted in the April 11, 1989, shooting deaths of
Gerald and Peggy Wood, who was 8 1/2 months pregnant, and their 2 young
children, Glendon, 3, and Jennifer, 4. Slawson sliced Peggy Wood's body
with a knife and pulled out her fetus, which had 2 gunshot wounds and
multiple cuts, court records show.
After the attack, Peggy Wood crawled down the stairs of their garage
apartment, across a backyard to her mother's home and told her," Newton
did it." She died in her mother's arms.
Just an hour before Slawson's scheduled execution Thursday, Gov. Jeb Bush
issued a temporary stay so that 3 psychiatrists could examine whether
Slawson was competent to be executed. Those psychiatrists reported to Bush
around midnight and said they found Slawson aware of what the death
sentence meant.
The standard for competency is understanding that execution will result in
death and why the sentence is being imposed. Bush lifted the stay early
Friday morning, prison spokesman Sterling Ivey said.
The stay came after Bush's office received a letter from Slawson's former
attorneys, Craig Alldredge and Brian Donerly, who challenged the condemned
man's sanity.
The attorneys said Slawson was mentally ill at the time of the slayings
and remains insane. Earlier this week, Donerly accused the state of
"helping the mentally ill commit suicide."
Slawson, who dropped his appeals in 2001 and asked for execution, had
eaten his last meal, read from a Star Trek novel and visited with family
members for the final time when given news of the stay. He was visibly
upset by the delay, Ivey said.
"He wanted the sentence to be carried out," Ivey said.
At a court hearing in Tampa last month, Slawson told Circuit Judge Rex
Barbas he wanted to be executed.
"Judge, let's just end this please," he said.
After his meeting with the psychiatrists ended around 10 p.m. Thursday,
Slawson went to sleep and slept through the night, Ivey said.
In his trial, prosecutors claimed Slawson had fantasies about dismembering
women. When he was arrested, police found bloody clothing, a bloody knife,
a .357 revolver with blood on it, an assault rifle, 180 rounds of
ammunition and a Penthouse magazine in which had drawn images of slit
bellies on some of the nude photographs.
Defense attorneys argued that Gerald Wood had slipped crack cocaine into
Slawson's beer, sending an unstable man into a killing rage.
For the murders, Slawson received four death sentences, plus a 30-year
sentence on a manslaughter conviction for the death of the fetus.
Since 1990, 6 of the 34 inmates executed have dropped their appeals. 4 of
the 11 executed since 2002, have volunteered for execution. Abe Bonowitz,
director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said Slawson
and other death row inmates who have volunteered for execution are
mentally ill.
"The only time the state will bend over backwards is when a prisoner wants
to kill himself," Bonowitz said. "We consider it an assisted suicide."
Last fall, 2 inmates -- serial killer Aileen Wuornos and triple murderer
Rigoberto Sanchez-Velasco -- were put to death after dropping their
appeals. The judge also ordered mental exams for them in the days before
their executions.
Slawson becomes the 56th person executed since Florida resumed executions
in 1979 and the 2nd to die this year. He was the 13th person executed
under a death warrant signed by Bush.
Florida trails Texas (304), Virginia (88), Oklahoma (62), and Missouri
(60) in the number of executions carried out since the death penalty was
re-legalized in America on July 2, 1976.
Slawson becomes the 34th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in
the USA and the 854th overall since America resumed capital punishment on
January 17, 1977.
(sources: Associated Press & Rick Halperin)