Nation - Texas Drug dealer executed for 1978 slaying of cop Some 150 police officers waited outside prison

By Michael Graczyk Associated Press Writer HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) -- A Texas high school valedictorian who became a drug dealer was executed Tuesday evening for killing an Austin police officer with an assault rifle during a traffic stop 32 years ago. David Lee Powell, 59, became the longest-serving inmate executed in Texas since the state began carrying out executions again in 1982. He was also one of the longest-imprisoned in the nation to die. In 2008, a prisoner in Georgia was executed after spending more than 33 years on death row. Powell received a lethal injection about 30 minutes after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal. His attorneys had argued unsuccessfully that his exemplary behavior on death row over the past three decades showed jurors were wrong when they decided he would be a continuing danger and should die for killing 26-year-old Ralph Ablanedo. Asked by a warden in the death chamber whether he had a final statement, Powell gave no response. As the drugs began flowing into his arms, he gasped slightly, began snoring quietly, then showed no movement. Nine minutes later, at 6:19 p.m. CDT, he was pronounced dead. Some 150 retired and active police officers from Austin traveled 135 miles east to Huntsville and waited outside the downtown prison in 90-plus degree heat as the punishment was carried out. They stood at attention as Ablanedo's family left the prison. "While we do not take lightly today's events, there is a sense of relief ... as the passage of time has allowed for healing," said Wayne Benson, president of the Austin Police Officers Association. "However, no amount of time will relieve the sadness." Several officers in the group knew Ablanedo. "We're not here to gloat or to celebrate a death," Police Chief Art Acevedo added. "We're here to celebrate a life, and that is the life of Officer Ablanedo." In May 1978, Ablanedo pulled over a car driven by Powell's girlfriend because it had no rear license plate. A background check showed Powell, riding in the passenger seat, was wanted for theft and passing bad checks. Powell shot the officer 10 times with a Chinese version of a Soviet-made AK-47. He was sentenced to death three times, most recently in 1999. The Supreme Court overturned his original conviction from 1978, and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals threw out his death sentence from a 1991 retrial. "I am infinitely sorry that I killed Ralph Ablanedo," Powell said in a December 2009 letter, intended for the officer's family and kept in the inmate's court file. "In a few frightful seconds, I stole from you and the world the precious and irreplaceable life of a good man." Bruce Mills, an officer who was Ablanedo's backup the night of the slaying and accompanied his mortally wounded partner to the hospital, eventually married Ablanedo's widow and adopted their two sons. The family watched the execution from the viewing area. Mills had said earlier that it was time for the sentence to be carried out. "I'm a big believer in due process," he said. "He's had every single T crossed and I dotted to have this reviewed and that reviewed and reviewed again." Powell stared at the family as they entered the viewing area but said nothing. He was not a typical criminal. He grew up on a dairy farm near Campbell in Hunt County, graduated a year early as valedictorian from his small high school and went into the honors program at the University of Texas at Austin. He was majoring in physics and math and aspiring to be a doctor when he got hooked on methamphetamines and never finished college. Powell was on his way to a drug deal when Ablanedo pulled over the car, said authorities, who later found .45-caliber handgun and about $5,000 worth of illegal drugs in the vehicle. Powell's girlfriend, Sheila Meinert, received 15 years in prison for attempted capital murder, served just over four years and was paroled in 1989. Powell was the 13th Texas inmate executed this year. Only five of the 322 prisoners on Texas death row have been there longer. ---------- Associated Press Writer Sarah Portlock contributed to this story. Published: Thu, Jun 17, 2010

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