Texas Execution Raises the Issue of Exceptions

HUNTSVILLE, Texas —  A former teenage drug dealer was executed Wednesday for killing a 3-year-old cousin--one of three relatives gunned down--so he could steal some chrome wheels.

Before he was administered the injection in the death chamber, Toronto Patterson said he didn’t commit the crime, but added, “I am sorry for the pain, sorry for what I caused my friends, family and loved ones.

“I ask for your forgiveness and that you will all forgive me,” said Patterson, 24.

Patterson was 17 when he killed Ollie Brown, 3; her sister, Jennifer, 6; and their mother, Kimberly Brewer, 25. He was convicted only of murdering Ollie Brown.

He was the third person executed here this year for a crime committed while a teenager.

“Such executions not only violate international norms, they also offend human decency,” said Steven Hawkins, executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

Patterson was the 23rd person executed in Texas this year and the 279th since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982, six years after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted a national death penalty ban. Both totals lead the nation.

For his final meal, Patterson requested six pieces of fried chicken, four jalapeno peppers, four buttermilk biscuits, salad with Italian dressing, six Sprite soft drinks and white cake with white icing.

Earlier Wednesday, three Supreme Court justices said in Washington that the court should consider abolishing the death penalty for killers who committed their crimes as minors.

Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer were outvoted in Patterson’s appeal. His attorneys had asked the high court to delay his execution and consider whether such executions are unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment.

The three justices, part of the court’s liberal wing, said Patterson’s execution should be put off at least until the Supreme Court meets in September to consider cases for the coming term.

“Given the apparent consensus that exists among the states and in the international community against the execution of a capital sentence imposed on a juvenile offender, I think it would be appropriate for the court to revisit the issue at the earliest opportunity,” Stevens wrote in a dissent.

The unusual statement comes after the court’s landmark ruling this year abolishing executions of the mentally retarded. The court said it is unconstitutionally cruel to execute those who may be mentally incapable of fully understanding their situations or unable to help their lawyers.

Death penalty opponents predicted the same reasoning could be applied to the execution of those too young to fully understand their crimes, and Stevens has predicted that the question will be the next death penalty issue the court decides.