Texas completes its fourth execution of 2023

As reported in this AP article, a “Texas inmate convicted of fatally stabbing his estranged wife and drowning her 6-year-old daughter in a bathtub nearly 14 years ago was executed on Tuesday.”  Here are more details:

Gary Green, 51, received a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.  He was condemned for the September 2009 deaths of Lovetta Armstead, 32, and her daughter, Jazzmen Montgomery, at their Dallas home. Green’s attorneys did not file any appeals seeking to stop the execution.

A Buddhist spiritual adviser chosen by Green stood beside the death chamber gurney at the inmate’s feet and said a brief prayer. Green then apologized profusely when asked by the warden if he had a final statement…. 

Instead of inserting the IV needles in each arm, prison technicians had to use a vein in Green’s right arm and a vein on the top of his left hand, delaying the injection briefly for Green, who was listed on prison records as weighing 365 pounds (165 kilograms)….  He was pronounced dead 33 minutes later, at 7:07 p.m.

Ray Montgomery, Jazzmen’s father and one of the witnesses, said recently that he wasn’t cheering for Green’s execution but saw it as the justice system at work. “It’s justice for the way my daughter was tortured.  It’s justice for the way that Lovetta was murdered,” said Montgomery, 43.  He and other witnesses did not speak with reporters afterward….

In prior appeals, Green’s attorneys had claimed he was intellectually disabled and had a lifelong history of psychiatric disorders.  Those appeals were rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court and lower appeals courts.  The high court has prohibited the death penalty for the intellectually disabled, but not for people with serious mental illness.

Authorities said Green committed the killings after Armstead sought to annul their marriage….  Armstead was stabbed more than two dozen times, and Green drowned Jazzmen in the home’s bathtub.  Authorities said Green also intended to kill Armstead’s two other children, then 9-year-old Jerrett and 12-year-old Jerome.  Green stabbed Jerrett but both boys survived….

Josh Healy, one of the prosecutors with the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office that convicted Green, said the boys were incredibly brave. Green “was an evil guy. It was one of the worst cases I’ve ever been a part of,” said Healy, now a defense attorney in Dallas….

Green’s execution was the first of two scheduled in Texas this week. Inmate Arthur Brown Jr. is set to be executed Thursday. Green was the eighth inmate in the U.S. put to death this year.

He was one of six Texas death row inmates participating in a lawsuit seeking to stop the state’s prison system from using what they allege are expired and unsafe execution drugs. Despite a civil court judge in Austin preliminarily agreeing with the claims, four of the Texas inmates including Green have been executed this year.