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July 18, 2024

Alabama completes lethal injection execution a quarter century after murder of delivery driver

As detailed in this AP article, a "man convicted of fatally shooting a delivery driver during a robbery attempt in 1998 was executed Thursday evening in Alabama. Keith Edmund Gavin was pronounced dead at 6:32 p.m. CDT following a chemical injection at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in southwest Alabama, authorities said." Here is more:

The 64-year-old inmate was convicted of capital murder in the shooting death of William Clayton Jr. in Cherokee County. Clayton, a 68-year-old courier service driver, had driven to an ATM in downtown Centre on the evening of March 6, 1998. He had just finished work and was getting money to take his wife to dinner, according to a court summary of trial testimony.

The execution began shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court turned down his request for a stay of execution, which Gavin filed himself in a handwritten document....

Prosecutors said Gavin shot Clayton during the attempted robbery, pushed him into the passenger seat of the van he was driving and drove off in the vehicle. A law enforcement officer testified that he began pursuing the van and the driver — a man he later identified as Gavin — shot at him before running away into the woods.

“After receiving a death sentence, Mr. Gavin appealed time after time for years to avoid justice, but failed at every attempt. Today, that justice was finally delivered for Mr. Clayton’s loved ones. I offer my prayers for Mr. Clayton’s family and friends who still mourn his loss all these years later,” Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement.

Clayton, 68, was retired from a job at a railroad company and was a Korean War veteran, according to a 1998 obituary published by The Birmingham News. At the time of the killing, Gavin was on parole in Illinois after serving 17 years of a 34-year sentence for murder, according to court records. “There is no doubt about Gavin’s guilt or the seriousness of his crime,” the Alabama attorney general’s office had written in requesting an execution date for Gavin.

Alabama last week agreed in Gavin’s case to forgo a post-execution autopsy, which is typically performed on executed inmates in the state. Gavin, who is Muslim, said the procedure would violate his religious beliefs. Gavin had filed a lawsuit seeking to stop plans for an autopsy, and the state settled the complaint.

A jury convicted Gavin of capital murder and voted 10-2 to recommend a death sentence, which a judge imposed. Most states now require a jury to be in unanimous agreement to impose a death sentence....

It was the 10th execution in the U.S. this year and the third in Alabama, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Texas, Georgia, Oklahoma and Missouri also have conducted executions this year. The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit takes no position on capital punishment but has criticized the way states carry out executions.

July 18, 2024 at 08:12 PM | Permalink

Comments

Good riddance.

Posted by: federalist | Jul 19, 2024 10:26:21 AM

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