{"id":45267,"date":"2013-06-25T21:50:37","date_gmt":"2013-06-25T20:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/texas-set-to-execute-500th-prisoner-2\/45267\/"},"modified":"2013-06-25T21:50:37","modified_gmt":"2013-06-25T20:50:37","slug":"texas-set-to-execute-500th-prisoner-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/texas-set-to-execute-500th-prisoner-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas set to execute 500th prisoner"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The state of Texas will execute its 500th death-row inmate since the Supreme Court ruled to allow capital punishment in 1976, marking a grim milestone for a state already notorious for its executions.<\/p>\n<p>\n  Texas has executed nearly five times as many people as Virginia,<br \/>\n  which executed the second-largest number of inmates since the<br \/>\n  late \u201870s. Capital punishment has been used in the state of Texas<br \/>\n  since 1819, but was suspended nationwide by the Supreme Court<br \/>\n  from 1972 to 1976. Altogether, the Lone Star State has executed<br \/>\n  about 1,250 people, all but six of which were male. About<br \/>\n  40 percent of the more than 1,300 executions carried out since<br \/>\n  1976 occurred in Texas.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Kimberly McCarthy, a convicted murder, is scheduled to become the<br \/>\n  500<sup>th<\/sup> Texas execution since the death penalty\u2019s<br \/>\n  reinstatement. The 52-year-old African-American woman was<br \/>\n  convicted of killing her 71-year-old neighbor with a butcher<br \/>\n  knife during a 1997 robbery, and will be the first female to be<br \/>\n  put to death in the US in three years. McCarthy will be the<br \/>\n  13<sup>th<\/sup> woman to be put to death in the US since the<br \/>\n  reinstatement, and the fourth in her state.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Her execution has already been delayed twice, and Defense<br \/>\n  Attorney Marie Levin is pushing to halt it again, arguing that<br \/>\n  Dallas County prosecutors intentionally excluded African-American<br \/>\n  jurors from her trial. But the Texas Court of Appeals<span>on<br \/>\n  Monday<\/span> denied one request to block the execution.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  If she receives her death by lethal injection <span>on<br \/>\n  Thursday<\/span>, her execution will mark a milestone event for<br \/>\n  Texas.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  <i>\u201cI think you have (Texas) getting a reputation for being<br \/>\n  bloodthirsty, and that\u2019s not good,\u201d<\/i> Mark White, the state\u2019s<br \/>\n  former attorney general and former governor told the Associated<br \/>\n  Press.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Seven other inmates are scheduled for execution over the next<br \/>\n  four months, and more than 280 convicted murders are still<br \/>\n  awaiting their punishment. The state executes an inmate about<br \/>\n  once ever three weeks.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Gov. Rick Perry has long defended capital punishment, and a 2012<br \/>\n  poll from the Texas Tribune found that only 21 percent of<br \/>\n  residents were opposed to it. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Texas executions are carried at a unit in the Huntsville Prison,<br \/>\n  70 miles north of Houston. The first man to be killed after<br \/>\n  the death penalty\u2019s reinstatement was Charlie Brookes, a<br \/>\n  convicted killer whose punishment was death by firing squad.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Thirty-two US states currently allow capital punishment. Texas,<br \/>\n  Virginia, Oklahoma, Florida, and Missouri, Alabama and Georgia<br \/>\n  have put the most people to death. But the Lone Star State<br \/>\n  has executed more people than the next six states combined.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Dennis Longmire, a criminal justice professor at Sam Houston<br \/>\n  State University, told AP that the number of executions in Texas<br \/>\n  is <i>\u201cstaggering\u201d<\/i> while other states abolish the death<br \/>\n  penalty or reduce the number of people who receive it. He says<br \/>\n  that <i>\u201cTexas continues to march to a different beat.&#8221;<\/i>\n<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on: <a href=\"http:\/\/rt.com\/usa\/texas-execution-prisoner-231\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Texas set to execute 500th prisoner\">RT<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The state of Texas will execute its 500th death-row inmate since the Supreme Court ruled to allow capital punishment in 1976, marking a grim milestone for a state already notorious for its executions. Texas has executed nearly five times as many people as Virginia, which executed the second-largest number of inmates since the late \u201870s. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-45267","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45267\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}