Chadwick Willacy Executed
Chadwick Willacy might have claimed innocence (dubiously, it seems to me) to the end, but he was sentenced to die for a heinous crime:
On September 5, 1990, Willacy, then 24, was burglarizing Sather’s Palm Bay home when she returned home unexpectedly. Willacy bludgeoned Sather, 56, bound her hands and feet with wire and duct tape, and brutally strangled her with a cord. He later disabled smoke detectors, doused her with gasoline, placed a fan at her feet, and set her on fire.
The jury at first did so 9-3. The second time, after an appeal, it was 11-1.
“Where a delay, measured in decades, reflects the State’s own failure to comply with the Constitution’s demands, the claim that time has rendered the execution inhuman is a particularly strong one.”
A few justices flagged the problem with waiting decades to execute people. Nonetheless, at least in the United States, that practice remains constitutional.
The final appeal to the Supreme Court argued that Florida was not sharing enough information about the lethal injection process. A fair argument, if one that failed repeatedly. Sotomayor noted her concern in the past, without supporting cert.
No one said anything this time, simply denying cert. He was then executed.
Our capital punishment system is too flawed, even if I (I don’t) support executing people as a general matter. Executing people over thirty years later? Nope.
Oh well. Two more due next week.