Arizona Executes Seventy For Double Murder Forty Years Ago | Abroad

In 1980, Murray Hooper and two accomplices broke into a home on New Year’s Eve to rob. They tied up the three residents and shot them in the head. A man and his mother-in-law were killed, his wife survived the attack and later identified the three attackers.

All three were sentenced to death in 1983, but the other two died in prison before being executed. Hooper has always maintained his innocence.

Later today in the state of Texas, 55-year-old Stephen Barbee will be given a lethal injection. He was sentenced to death in 2006 for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, who was pregnant at the time, and her 7-year-old son. He had initially admitted to the crime, but soon retracted his statement, saying he was coerced into a false confession by police.

His lawyers filed a final appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday. They accuse local prison authorities of not having a clear policy on the religious rights of inmates in the death chamber. The Supreme Court is expected to rule later Wednesday evening local time. The conservative majority has little understanding of the arguments of death row inmates, except sometimes in religious matters.

If the court rules in Texas, Stephen Barbee will become the 15th convict to be executed in the US this year.

In the United States, it is not uncommon for decades to elapse between a death sentence and its execution because so many legal remedies are available after the sentence has been passed. According to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), nearly a quarter of death row inmates in the United States were over the age of 60 at the end of 2020.