SEATTLE - Despite several appeals for a stay on his execution, Texas inmate Arthur Lee Burton died today, Aug. 7, at approximately 6:47 p.m. CT by lethal injection at a state prison in Huntsville, about 70 miles north of Houston. He was convicted in the July 29, 1997, rape and murder of Nancy Adleman, a 48-year-old Houston mother of three who had been out exercising.
Burton became the third inmate to be executed in Texas this year, with four other executions scheduled for 2024. In total, 11 inmates have been executed across the U.S. this year.
The case against Arthur Lee Burton
Juries sentenced Burton to death during two separate punishment trials in 1998 and 2002, after the Court of Criminal Appeals threw out his first sentence because of mistakes made by his first defense attorney. Burton's lawyers made numerous attempts to stop his execution, including two appeals in July that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected. The most recent appeal was also rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court about five hours before his execution, denying Burton's application for a stay based on evidence of his intellectual disability.
Prosecutors say Burton had not previously raised claims over his alleged intellectual disability and waited until eight days before his scheduled execution to do so. An expert for the Harris County District Attorney's Office, which prosecuted Burton, said in an Aug. 1 report that Burton's writing and reading abilities "fall generally at or higher than the average U.S. citizen, which is inconsistent with" intellectual disability.
"I have not seen any mental health or other notations that Mr. Burton suffers from a significant deficit in intellectual or mental capabilities," according to the report by Thomas Guilmette, a psychology professor at Providence College in Rhode Island.
In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that executing someone with an intellectual disability constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment." Intellectual disability is one of two categories of bars the court placed on the death penalty. Those who were under the age of 18 at the time of a capital crime are also ineligible for the death penalty.
According to court documents, Burton initially denied killing Adleman, but he later confessed to the crime and admitted to attacking a jogger, dragging her to the woods, and choking her until she was unconscious.
Burton's execution comes just a few hours before the state of Utah will carry out the state's first execution in 14 years, when Taberon Honie is expected to die by lethal injection. Honie has been on death row for more than 25 years after he sexually assaulted and killed his ex-girlfriend's mother in 1998.
The next execution scheduled in the state of Texas is set for Sept. 24, when Travis Mullis is expected to die by lethal injection. Mullis was found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to death in 2011, three years after sexually assaulting, choking and stomping to death his three-month-old son in Galveston.
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