Nov. 14


NORTH CAROLINA---execution

Man Who Killed Elderly Aunt Executed


In Raleigh, a man who strangled his elderly aunt in 1990 was executed
early Friday by injection.

John Dennis Daniels, 46, was pronounced dead at 2:15 a.m. at Central
Prison in Raleigh, corrections officials said.

A jury sentenced Daniels to death for fatally choking 77-year-old Isabella
Daniels Crawford with an ironing cord. He was also convicted of assaulting
his wife and son with a hammer, assaulting his neighbor with a knife and
attempting to burn his house after Crawford was killed.

The state Supreme Court on Thursday rejected Daniels' appeal, and Gov.
Mike Easley refused to commute Daniels' sentence to life in prison. A
Superior Court judge declined earlier this week to block the execution.

Daniels had been having marital problems and was behind on his rent when
he went to his aunt's house in Charlotte on Jan. 17, 1990, to ask for
money. He also asked if his wife and son could live with her.

Crawford refused and said she was going to call his mother. Daniels hit
her in the face and choked her with the cord, took $70 to $80 and returned
home.

Daniels becomes the 6th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in
North Carolina and the 29th overall since the state resumed capital
punishment in 1984.

Daniels becomes the 61st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in
the USA and the 881st overall since America resumed executions on January
17, 1977.

(sources: Associated Press & Rick Halperin)

MAY YOU REST IN PEACE MR. DANIELS.THE BOYS ARE GONNA MISS YOU.....WILL THIS MADNEES EVER STOP

:( :(

My heart is crying, again. God bless you Mr.Daniels and your family.

My heart bleeds also for another. May Mr Daniels rest in peace, and stay in our hearts.

rest in peace mr. daniels.

sorry i am so late w/posting that. didnt realize they murdered another. :mad:

xoxo
melissa

I just found this article, and it really made me cry. What is Gov Easley trying to do, make up for the good thing Gov Ryan did?? Now this family has more to grieve for, thanks to the hands of Gov Easley. May you rest in Peace Mr Daniels.

Who does this serve?


11/23/2003
The victim's family opposed it. A leading prosecution witness recanted her testimony stating "I was used and the information that was provided to me was not complete." Neither of those things was sufficient to give North Carolina governor Mike Easley pause in allowing John Daniel's execution to proceed. And so, on November 14, Daniels was put to death by lethal injection, the sixth man to die at the hands of the state of North Carolina this year.

John Daniels murdered his aunt Isabella Crawford, strangling her and then robbing her. He returned home, hit his wife and son with a hammer and a rock, set his house on fire, blocked the doors and lay down on a bed, waiting to die. His bloodstream was filled with cocaine and alcohol, in the words of psychiatrist Cynthia White who appeared for the prosecution, "much more…than the prosecution had led me to believe." He later tried to kill himself in custody by hanging himself with the drawstring of his pants.

White never interviewed John Daniels. By law, medical experts do not have to interview the person who will be the subject of their testimony. And so she based much of her original testimony on information provided to her by the prosecution, information which she later discovered was far from accurate or complete.

At his clemency hearing the week before Daniels was scheduled to die, White returned to North Carolina to plead Daniels' case. "The jury was misled. I was misled, and I'm outraged and do not believe John Daniels should be put to death."

In the week leading up to Daniels' execution, Isabella Crawford's family issued a statement saying "The scheduled execution of John Daniels for the killing of Isabella Crawford, his aunt, cuts against all that Ms. Crawford lived by and taught others, and is an event her family firmly believes she would oppose. Eight of the nine grandchildren do not wish for the execution of John Daniels to be carried out; all agree that Isabella Crawford would not wish for the execution to take place." (You can read the full statement at www.wral.com/news/2632093/detail.html.)

So, who does John Daniels' execution serve? Clearly not the family, who overwhelmingly opposed it. Nor the victim, whose memory – according to those who were closest to her – would have been better honored by granting him clemency. And certainly not justice, which would seem to have been a victim itself, given the withholding and twisting of psychiatric testimony used to help convict him.

When Illinois Governor George Ryan commuted the death sentence of every prisoner on death row in his state, North Carolina Governor Mike Easley didn't hesitate in calling the act "a travesty" and "an abuse of the authority the people have entrusted [him] with". He called Ryan's act of mercy "unfair to the victim's families."

So, in what light should his denial of clemency for Daniels be seen? Who does Daniels death serve?

IN MY OPINION GOV. EASLEY HAS THE BLOOD OF ALL THESE MEN ON HIS HANDS. I CARE NOT TO COMMENT ANYMORE BECAUSE I MAY SOMETHING I REALLY SHOULDNT...RIP JOHN