Courts - Mississippi State AG seeks back-to-back execution dates

By Jimmie E. Gates The Clarion-Ledger JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- For the first time in almost half a century, the state attorney general's office is seeking back-to-back executions. The attorney general's office has asked for Mississippi Supreme Court approval to execute three death row inmates next month. The requests for the execution dates come after one of the inmates missed a deadline for filing a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review his case and the high court's refusal to consider further petitions from the other two death row inmates. Mississippi Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps said Tuesday his department is ready to carry out the executions. "I already have them scheduled," Epps told The Clarion-Ledger. The inmates the state is seeking to execute in May are Joseph Daniel Burns, Gerald James Holland and Paul Woodward. The latter two were in their 40s and 30s when they were sentenced to death. Today, Holland at 72 is the oldest inmate on death row. "I am surprised that the state wants to schedule three executions in an eight-day period," said Jackson lawyer James Craig, who has worked on Holland's and Woodward's appeals. "Any one execution is a major strain on the staff and prisoners in Parchman; three in a little over a week will pose unprecedented issues for the penitentiary administration." Epps said the cost is roughly $11,000 to carry out an execution. Epps said three executions may place some strain on his budget but, "That's what we do." Attorney general's office spokeswoman Jan Schaefer said this is the first time the office has asked for back-to-back executions in recent times. The last back-to-back executions were in 1961 when the gas chamber was in use. The attorney general's office is asking the Mississippi court to set Burns' execution for May 12, Woodward's execution for May 19, and Holland's execution for May 20. Burns, 42, was convicted in the 1994 killing of Tupelo motel manager Floyd McBride at the Town House Motel. Prosecutors say Burns stabbed McBride while an accomplice opened the motel safe, then the two men fled with money from the safe. Michael Adelman, of Hattiesburg, Burns' attorney in his post-conviction appeals, said he has filed a motion with the state Supreme Court saying it would be inhumane for Burns to be executed because a petition has not been filed with the U.S. Supreme Court. Adelman said he believes Burns' situation is different than Holland's and Woodward's. "I think he still has appeals left," Adelman said of Burns. In the cases of Holland and Woodward, the state asserts "that all state and federal remedies have been exhausted," Assistant Attorney General Sonny White wrote in a motion on each. White said it is the state's position that the U.S. Supreme Court's denial of Holland's and Woodward's petitions ends their challenges in state and federal court. Holland, of Adams County, was sentenced to death in 1987 for raping, beating, stabbing and suffocating 15-year-old Krystal King, also of Adams County. The state Supreme Court upheld his conviction in 1991 but threw out the death sentence and sent it back to the lower court. Holland again was sentenced to death in 1993. The state Supreme Court upheld that sentence in 1997. Woodward, 62, of Monticello, initially was sentenced to death in 1987 and again in 1993 for the rape and shooting death of Rhonda Crane, 24, of Escatawpa. Reached Tuesday, Crane's father, Robert Holloman, said of Woodward, "They didn't give him the death penalty; he earned it." Holloman found his daughter's body. "How would you feel if it was your daughter? Yes, I want him put to death," Holloman said. Holloman said he is uncertain he would witness the execution if it is carried out. Family members of King and McBride couldn't be reached. The last execution in the state was July 23, 2008, when Dale Leo Bishop, 34, was executed for his role in the 1998 slaying of 22-year-old Marcus Gentry, of Fulton. Published: Thu, Apr 22, 2010

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