August 5 ALABAMA----execution Alabama executes aging inmate for 1977 murder A 74-year-old condemned murderer was executed Thursday after courts and the governor refused to prevent him from becoming the oldest U.S. inmate put to death in decades. James Barney Hubbard died by lethal injection at 6:36 p.m. at Holman Prison near Atmore. Hubbard was executed for the 1977 murder of 62-year-old Lillian Montgomery of Tuscaloosa. She was shot in the head and robbed after befriending Hubbard, who had been released from prison after serving 19 years for a 1957 killing. Hubbard becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Alabama, and the 29th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1983. Hubbard becomes the 37th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 922nd overall since America resumed executions on January 17, 1077. (sources: Associated Press & Rick Halperin) TENNESSEE: Workman Denied Clemency----Execution Scheduled For Aug. 26 The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole board voted Thursday to deny clemency to a man convicted and sentenced to death for the beating death of his girlfriend's 2-year-old daughter. The board voted 4-1 against clemency for Windel Ray Workman, 46, who is to be executed Aug. 26 for the Jan. 10, 1987, death of Amber Holman. Holman was the daughter of Workman's live-in girlfriend. Court documents indicate he had a history of abusing the child, eventually killing her with multiple blows to the head and abdomen. Court documents indicate that 3 doctors testified the child's death was caused by blunt trauma and that her injuries were consistent with being hit by a fist, a hard object such as a board or being picked up by her legs and slammed into a wall. (source: Associated Press) PENNSYLVANIA: Death Penalty Sought in Murder Case Delaware County prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against a man accused of killing 2 people in a botched robbery attempt in Upper Darby. 24-year-old William Rankins of Philadelphia was formally arraigned on murder charges in Media today. He pleaded not guilty. Police say Rankins and 22 year old Darryl Williams, Junior murdered Jamie Durham and Jawaun Ellis as they sat in a car on LaCarra Drive. Police are still looking for Williams. (source: WPVI News) LOUISIANA: Trial opens in Louisiana serial killings In Port Allen, a woman who said she survived a nearly fatal attack by a man suspected of 7 killings in south Louisiana pointed to the defendant in court Thursday, telling him, "While my eyes were closed, I did not forget your face." Diane Alexander was the 1st witness in the 1st trial for Derrick Todd Lee, who was arrested last year. Authorities say DNA evidence links him to the women's deaths. Lee, 35, is being tried for 2nd-degree murder in the death of Geralyn DeSoto, 21, who was found in a pool of her own blood in January 2002 in West Baton Rouge parish. A conviction would bring a life sentence. Lee also faces at least 3 other trials - 2 death penalty cases in other slayings, and an attempted rape-murder case in the attack on Alexander. "I feel good he's caught, because had he not been caught, he'd probably still be on a killing spree," Alexander testified. Lee's attorney Tommy Thompson asked for a mistrial after Alexander made the "killing spree" comment, saying that she improperly referred to crimes that are not supposed to be mentioned in the trial. Prosecutors in DeSoto's slaying are allowed to use evidence from Alexander's case and only one of the other slayings. State district Judge Robin Free rejected Thompson's motion, saying Alexander did not refer to any specific crime. Alexander testified that in July 2002, Lee forced his way into her mobile home and beat her nearly unconscious after claiming to be lost. He fled after her son arrived at the trailer, she said. Pictures of Alexander taken after she was assaulted showed her with eyes swollen shut, head cuts and a puncture wound in one arm. In his opening statement, prosecutor Tony Clayton detailed the bloody DeSoto crime scene, saying she had been stabbed in the back and the side and that her throat had been slashed. "He savagely, brutally sucked the life out of that child," Clayton said. Clayton said experts will testify that DNA found under DeSoto's fingernails could only have come from males in Lee's family, because Lee has "peculiar markings" that are rarely seen in DNA. In his opening, Thompson asked jurors to listen to both sides of the case and to form their own opinions on whether DNA is the "magic bullet" that prosecutors claim. (source: Associated Press)
