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| Jerry Terrell Jackson |
Jerry Terrell Jackson was executed by injection tonight for the rape and murder of an 88-year-old woman he suffocated with a pillow and robbed of $60.
Jackson, 30, was pronounced dead at 9:14 p.m., said officials at the Greensville Correctional Center where Virginia executions are carried out.
Asked if he had any last words, Jackson shook his head indicating no.
It was the 1st execution in Virginia using the sedative pentobarbital as the 1st of 3 drugs administered in lethal injections. Virginia and most states traditionally used another drug that is no longer available.
Larry Traylor, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Corrections, said there were no complications.
Jackson was escorted into the execution chamber by execution team members at 8:53 p.m. He was quickly ushered onto the gurney and strapped in.
At 8:55 p.m., curtains were closed, blocking the view of witnesses while an IV line was inserted in each of his arms.
After the curtains reopened, Jackson declined to make a last statement and the 1st of 3 chemicals started flowing.
His chest moved as he breathed, his right toe appeared to tap and he moved his head a bit, but the movements quickly ceased.
He was pronounced dead by a doctor who was remotely monitoring his heartbeat.
Jackson was sentenced to death for the slaying of Ruth Phillips in August 2001. Jackson broke into her apartment, where she lived alone, assaulted her and fled with her automobile.
Her partially clothed body was discovered by her son, Richard Phillips, who went to check on her when she failed to attend church and did not answer her phone.
"These were senseless crimes committed with no regard for anyone or anything other than Jackson's own gratification," Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said in a statement tonight. "The just sentence of death has now been carried out. Our thoughts and prayers remain with the family and friends of Ruth Phillips."
Gov. Bob McDonnell turned down Jackson's bid for clemency last week and U.S. Supeme Court rejected his appeal this afternoon.
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor would have granted his request for a stay of execution, according to a short order from the high court.
Jackson's lawyers filed an appeal and a request for a stay of execution with the justices, in part on the grounds that Jackson’s trial lawyers failed to interview and present testimony from Jackson’s brother and sister about the physical, psychological and sexual abuse Jackson suffered as a child.
The testimony could have persuaded at least one juror to vote for a sentence of life without parole instead of death, they contend.
The Virginia Attorney General’s Office, however, countered that the jury heard a great deal of evidence about the abuse suffered by Jackson and that testimony from his brother and sister would not have broken new ground.
Jackson becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Virginia and the 109th overall since the state resumed executions in 1982. Only Texas, with 473 executions, has put more people to death since the death penalty was re-legalized in the USA on July 2, 1976. Jackson becomes the 32nd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1266th overall since executions resumed on January 17, 1977.
Sources: Richmond Times-Dispatch, Rick Halperin, August 18, 2011
Electric chair or injection? Grim choice on US death row
Behind a blue curtain, the electric chair patiently waits its turn to take a life, but on this night in a chamber of a Virginia prison, murder convict Jerry Jackson dies by the needle.
"15 days prior to execution, the inmate is asked which execution method he chooses," explains David Bass at the Greensville Correctional Center. "He may choose between the electric chair and the lethal injection." For the most part, Bass says, "they prefer the injection."
The man in the dark suit and speaking in a soft southern twang is all too aware that most of America's death row inmates pick the poison over the pulse of electrocution.
Of the various execution methods currently in use in the United States - electricity, firing squad, hanging, lethal injection and lethal gas - injection has become the standard.
As an employee of the Virginia Department of Corrections, Bass is responsible for "guiding" about a dozen people attending Thursday night's execution - volunteers and journalists, including an AFP correspondent - through the facility about 160 miles (260 kilometers) south of Washington.
They are here to witness the death of Jackson, a strapping, 31-year-old African-American man whose crimes a decade ago sent his life on course to the events of this final night.
On an August evening in 2001, Jackson raped Ruth Phillips, an 88-year-old widow in Williamsburg, Virginia, and then suffocated her with a pillow.
Nearly 10 years and several legal challenges later, Jackson's fate came down to an appeal to Governor Bob McDonnell for clemency. Appeal denied.
Hours after the US Supreme Court declined to stop the execution, Jackson walks through a side door and into the death chamber. It is 8:50 pm.
Behind a 2-way mirror, journalists, prison staff and volunteers are wedged in their plastic seats, searching the prisoner's face and body language in search of emotion.
He is wearing jeans, a blue shirt and sandals. His upper lip quivers.
Taylor Roesch, a "citizen witness" in his 20s, squirms in his seat.
"It's something that should be experienced," Roesch, who is studying the death penalty, says about bearing witness to the execution.
"I want to be able to make a case," Roesch says about capital punishment, which remains a deeply divisive issue among Americans.
Jackson lies on a raised gurney fitted with leather straps. Six prison staffers methodically strap him down.
The curtain closes abruptly, and the employees, unseen, insert catheters into each of Jackson's arms.
5 minutes pass, and the audience is silent. A cough escapes from behind the curtain.
After 10 minutes, the fabric is drawn open, and Jackson is still conscious, his arms crossed over his chest.
The catheters, barely visible, will carry the lethal cocktail of three drugs - an anesthetic, then a muscle paralyzer, and finally potassium chloride to stop respiration - to Jackson's body.
Jackson's execution is the 1st in Virginia this year, and the 1st in the state to use the anesthetic pentobarbital, which is normally used to euthanize animals.
Several states switched to the drug this year instead of sodium thiopental for their lethal injections after the sole US supplier ceased production.
Jackson's face is largely hidden by the bulk of his body, but his chest can be seen rising and falling. His toes twitch.
Prison warden George Hinkle looks at Jackson. "Do you have any last words?" Jackson appears to say "no," but no one is really sure.
Hinkle steps away, and the injections begin. A clock above the door marks the time: 9:08 pm.
A minute passes, and Jackson's toes stop twitching. To the witnesses, Jackson looks completely inert.
At 9:14, an official declares, to no one in particular, "the order of the court was carried out."
Jerry Jackson is dead. The curtain is drawn once again, and the witnesses - some of them shaken - stand up. No relatives of the murder victim are in attendance.
Outside the chamber, in a dark parking lot of the prison, a pickup truck waits to take delivery of Jackson's body.
Source: Agence France-Presse, August 18, 2011
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