The Latest on the execution of Texas inmate (all times local):
7:25 p.m.
A Texas inmate has been executed for fatally shooting a newlywed during a robbery more than 25 years ago.
Alvin Braziel Jr. received lethal injection Tuesday evening at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.
The 43-year-old Braziel was condemned for the 1993 slaying of 27-year-old Douglas White as he and his wife walked along a jogging trail in the Dallas suburb of Mesquite. The couple had been married only 10 days.
White’s killing remained unsolved for more than seven years until DNA evidence tied Braziel to the case.
Braziel is the 24th inmate put to death this year in the U.S. and the 13th executed in Texas, the nation’s busiest capital punishment state. He will be the last Texas inmate executed this year.
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7 p.m.
A Texas appeals court has rejected a last-minute appeal to halt the execution of an inmate condemned for the slaying of a newlywed attacked as he and his wife walked on a jogging trail more than 25 years ago.
Attorneys for Alvin Braziel Jr. argued that an emotional outburst at Braziel’s 2001 murder trial from the widow of slain 27-year-old Douglas White was unfairly elicited by prosecutors when she was shown on the witness stand a photo of her husband’s autopsied body.
Braziel’s attorneys went to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest criminal court, after the judge in Braziel’s trial court in Dallas rejected their plea that his Tuesday evening execution be put off so they can investigate whether prosecutors wrongly provoked the outburst and then misrepresented their intentions to the trial court. Prosecutors at the trial denied any wrongdoing.
The ruling came about an hour after the six-hour execution window defined by the execution warrant began. The death warrant is in effect from 6 p.m. CST until midnight.
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11 a.m.
A Texas death row inmate is set to be executed for the fatal shooting more than 25 years ago of a newlywed who had only been married for 10 days.
Forty-three-year-old Alvin Braziel Jr. would be the 24th inmate put to death this year in the U.S. and the 13th executed in Texas, the nation’s busiest capital punishment state. He would be the last Texas inmate executed this year.
His lethal injection is scheduled for Tuesday evening at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.
He was condemned for the slaying of 27-year-old Douglas White as White and his wife walked along a jogging trail in 1993 in the Dallas suburb of Mesquite.
White’s killing remained unsolved for more than seven years until DNA evidence tied Braziel to the case.
