There were two planned executions in the US on Thursday – one was halted over questions of the suspect’s guilt and the other went ahead after the death row inmate asked to be killed.
The Texas Supreme Court stopped the scheduled execution of Robert Roberson, who was convicted of killing his two-year-old daughter in 2002.
He would have become the first person in the US to be put to death for a murder conviction tied to a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome.
Meanwhile, Derrick Dearman, 36, was pronounced dead at 6.14pm local time in Alabama after he dropped his appeal earlier this year and asked a judge to carry out his death sentence.
Dearman broke into a home where his estranged girlfriend had taken refuge, in a drug-fuelled rampage in 2016, and killed five people.
At least 20 people have been put to death in the US this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
But numbers have been trending down in recent decades.
‘He was shocked, to say the least’
A flurry of last-ditch legal challenges and weeks of public pressure led to a late-night stay of execution for Roberson.
His supporters claim he was sent to death row based on flawed science.
In the hours leading up to the ruling, Roberson sat in a prison cell just a few metres from his country’s busiest death chamber at the Walls Unit, in Huntsville, as he waited for certainty over his fate.
“He was shocked, to say the least,” said Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesperson Amanda Hernandez, who spoke with Roberson after the court stayed his execution.
“He praised god and he thanked his supporters.”
Jennifer Martin, left, and Thomas Roberson, older brother of condemned prisoner Robert Roberson, right. Pic: AP
The 57-year-old was convicted of killing his daughter Nikki Curtis but his lawyers and some medical experts have said she died from complications related to pneumonia.
A bipartisan coalition of state politicians employed unusual methods to save Roberson’s life, issuing a subpoena for him to testify before a committee next week – a plan, some conceded, which had never been tried before.
Less than two hours before Roberson’s execution, a judge sided with politicians before an appeals panel reversed the decision.
But then the all-Republican court ended a night of uncertainty with its ruling.
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Dearman in 2016. Pic: AP
‘I am guilty’
Meanwhile, while one man avoided the death penalty, another willingly underwent lethal injection.
Strapped to a gurney in the Alabama execution chamber, Dearman said to the families of his victims: “Forgive me. This is not for me. This is for you. I’ve taken so much.”
He also told his own family he loved them.
The lethal injection was carried out after Dearman dropped his appeals this year and asked the execution went ahead.
“I am guilty. It’s not fair to the victims or their families to keep prolonging the justice that they so rightly deserve,” he wrote in a letter to the judge in April.
The home near Citronelle where Dearman killed five people. Pic: AP
On 20 August 2016, at a home near Citronelle, Alabama, Shannon Randall, 35, Joseph Turner, 26, Robert Lee Brown, 26, Justin Reed, 23, and Chelsea Reed, 22, were all killed.
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All of the victims were related or married and Chelsea Reed, who was married to Justin Reed, was pregnant.
In a statement, Bryant Randall, the father of Chelsea Reed said: “I so long for a final goodbye to my daughter and I would have loved to meet my grandchild.
“I was stripped in many ways of happiness and the bond of family by your [Dearman’s] senseless act.”
The father of Robert Lee Brown said his family will “suffer for the rest of their lives”.
“This don’t bring nothing back. I can’t get my son back or any of them back,” he added.