Missouri executes inmate on death row. Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) announced that he had refused clemency appeal hours after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected two similar petitions.
Paul Goodwin’s execution was contested by His lawyers who said that the 48 year old convict was mentally unstable and therefore not fit to be punished for his crime. Paul was convicted for the rape and murder of 63-year-old widow Joan Crotts with a ball-peen hammer in 1998.
Exactly at 1:17 A.M. Wednesday Goodwin was administered the lethal injection in an execution room in Bonne Terre, Mo., about 60 KM from St. Louis. Goodwin was pronounced dead by a Doctor eight minutes later. This is the 10th execution to happen in the State of Missouri this year.
In a last ditch effort Goodwin’s attorney’s pointed out the fact that his IQ was 73 against a normal score of 90 to 109.Goodwin’s Sister, Mary Mifflin also made a plea to Nixon to commute his death sentence to life behind bars.
In an affidavit, Mifflin said it was “not a just punishment for his crime — an act that occurred out of passion, not premeditation, by a man with the mental capabilities of a child, not an adult.”
Supreme Court has ruled that US Constitution forbade execution of intellectually disabled persons. However it is ambiguous and declined to exactly define disability or a factor like IQ which is conclusive.
On March 1 1998, Goodwin was on a drinking bout with a friend and that night he broke into Crotts’s house in St. Louis County and hid himself in the basement. Next morning Goodwin who was over six feet and weighed 340 pounds, sexually assaulted Crott, pushed her down the basement stairs before viciously delivering three fatal blows to her head with a ball-peen hammer. He also left an ominous note, “You are next”, which was meant for Crott’s daughter.
Goodwin had a few years earlier lived in a white boarding house next door. He was evicted from the boarding house for his unruly behavior like throwing chicken bones and beer cans into Crott’s yard. Goodwin held Crott responsible for his eviction and as per court records told Crott that he will get her for this.
Crott’s daughter found her lying in a pool of blood in the basement and rushed her to the hospital where she told her daughter what happened. Crott underwent emergency brain surgery the same night but succumbed to her injuries on the operation table.
Goodwin confessed to the killing and was convicted.cialis tolerance
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