Texas carries on capital punishment

Sat, 25 Aug 2007 07:20:09

EU has asked Texas Governor to put a ban on ultimate penalty. Texas, disregarding international calls to abandon capital punishment, has exacted the ultimate penalty a 400th time, executing a killer.

Johnny Ray Conner, a 32-year-old native of Shreveport, La., died by lethal injection just after 6 p.m. in the Texas death chamber in Huntsville not long after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to step in. Conner was executed for the 1998 shooting death of Houston convenience store clerk Kathyanna Nguyen and the wounding of a customer who survived.

The European Union had asked Texas Gov. Rick Perry not to execute Conner and declare a death penalty moratorium. But in response, gubernatorial spokesman Robert Black referring to the Revolutionary War of the US forefathers that threw off the yoke of a European monarch said that Texans long ago decided that the death penalty was a just and appropriate punishment for the most horrible crimes committed against their citizens.

Black added: "While we respect our friends in Europe, welcome their investment in our state and appreciate their interest in our laws, Texans are doing just fine governing Texas.