Percy Levar Walton (born October 18, 1978) was convicted and sentenced to death in 1997 for the November 1996 murders of Elizabeth and Jessee Kendrick, aged 81 and 80, and Archie Moore, aged 33, in Danville, Virginia.[1]
He was scheduled to be executed on June 8, 2006, but the governor of Virginia, Tim Kaine, stayed the execution one hour before it was due to take place and ordered a mental examination of the convict to determine if he is fit for execution or not. It was reported that Walton has an IQ of just 66, other reports claim that a test conducted before his 18th birthday put his IQ at 90.[2]
Governor Kaine stated that it would be immoral to either execute or pardon Walton without further investigations, and ordered that the court would evaluate the results of the examinations and, if applicable, set a new execution date on December 9, 2006. Kaine's decision sparked criticism from his political opponents, who during the recent election campaigns claimed that he was soft on crime and unwilling to make use of the death penalty.
Walton was subsequently moved to the Marion Treatment Center, a Virginia Department of Corrections facility specially equipped to help mentally ill inmates. "Percy Walton is extremely mentally ill and profoundly impaired, and so obviously I think the governor acted appropriately and compassionately in granting our clemency request," attorney Jennifer Givens said.[3]
As of 2023, Percy Levar Walton is currently housed at the Greensville Correctional Center.
In the United States, capital punishment is a legal penalty in 27 states, throughout the country at the federal level, and in American Samoa. It is also a legal penalty for some military offenses. Capital punishment has been abolished in the other 23 states and in the federal capital, Washington, D.C. It is usually applied for only the most serious crimes, such as aggravated murder. Although it is a legal penalty in 27 states, 20 of them have authority to execute death sentences, with the other 7, as well as the federal government and military, subject to moratoriums.
Capital punishment was abolished via the legislative process on May 2, 2013, in the U.S. state of Maryland.
Capital punishment is one of two possible penalties for aggravated murder in the U.S. state of Oregon, with it being required by the Constitution of Oregon.
Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 6–3 that executing people with intellectual disabilities violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishments, but that states can define who has an intellectual disability. At the time Atkins was decided, 18 of the 38 death penalty states exempted mentally disabled offenders from the death penalty.
Capital punishment was abolished in Virginia on March 24, 2021, when Governor Ralph Northam signed a bill into law. The law took effect on July 1, 2021. Virginia is the 23rd state to abolish the death penalty, and the first southern state in United States history to do so.
Greensville Correctional Center is a prison facility located in unincorporated Greensville County, Virginia, near Jarratt. The prison, on a 1,105-acre (447 ha) plot of land, is operated by the Virginia Department of Corrections. Greensville houses the execution chamber that was used to carry out capital punishment by the Commonwealth of Virginia until the death penalty in Virginia was abolished in 2021.
Wrongful execution is a miscarriage of justice occurring when an innocent person is put to death by capital punishment. Opponents of capital punishment often cite cases of wrongful execution as arguments, while proponents argue that innocence concerns the credibility of the justice system as a whole and does not solely undermine the use of the death penalty.
Brandon Wayne Hedrick was an American convicted murderer who was executed by the state of Virginia in the electric chair for the 1997 murder of 23-year-old Lisa Crider, who was kidnapped, robbed, raped, and shot in the face. He was the first person electrocuted in Virginia since 2003, when Earl Bramblett was executed for rape and murder.
Morris Odell Mason was an American convicted rapist and murderer who called himself "the killer for the Eastern Shore". He was executed for the murder of Margaret K. Hand, although he was responsible for at least one other murder committed during a killing spree days prior that involved multiple burglaries and sexual assaults. His execution was controversial due to his diagnosis with schizophrenia and developmental disabilities, the latter of which caused activists and even Mason's executioner to worry that Mason was not mentally sound enough to be aware of his impending execution.
William Charles Morva was an American-Hungarian man convicted of the 2006 shooting deaths of Sheriff's Deputy Corporal Eric Sutphin, 40, and hospital security guard Derrick McFarland, 32, in the town of Blacksburg, Virginia. He was sentenced to death for the crime and was executed on July 6, 2017. Morva was the last inmate to be executed by the Commonwealth of Virginia before capital punishment in the state was abolished on March 24, 2021.
Harry Charles Moore was an American convicted murderer who was executed in Oregon for the 1992 murders of Thomas Lauri and Barbara Cunningham. He was the second person executed by the state of Oregon since 1978 and remains the state's most recent execution.
Opened in 1969, Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison (GDCP) is a Georgia Department of Corrections prison for men in unincorporated Butts County, Georgia, near Jackson. The prison holds the state execution chamber. The execution equipment was moved to the prison in June 1980, with the first execution in the facility occurring on December 15, 1983. The prison houses the male death row, while female death row inmates reside in Arrendale State Prison.
Capital punishment was abolished in Colorado in 2020. It was legal from 1974 until 2020 prior to it being abolished in all future cases.
James Lee Clark was an American murderer with an intellectual disability whose controversial execution by the state of Texas sparked international outcry. The controversy involved the argument that his execution violated the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Atkins v. Virginia (2002), which held that executions of intellectually disabled criminals is cruel and unusual punishment, which is prohibited by the Eighth Amendment.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Florida.
Earl Washington Jr. is a former Virginia death-row inmate, who was fully exonerated of murder charges against him in 2000. He had been wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death in 1984 for the 1982 rape and murder of Rebecca Lyn Williams in Culpeper, Virginia. Washington has an IQ estimated at 69, which classifies him as intellectually disabled. He was coerced into confessing to the crime when arrested on an unrelated charge a year later. He narrowly escaped being executed in 1985 and 1994.
Teresa Wilson Bean Lewis was an American murderer who was the only woman on death row in Virginia prior to her execution. She was sentenced to death by lethal injection for the murders of her husband and stepson in October 2002. Lewis sought to profit from a $250,000 life insurance policy her stepson had taken out as a U.S. Army reservist in anticipation of his deployment to Iraq.
Colorado State Penitentiary is a Level V maximum security prison in the U.S. state of Colorado. The facility is part of the state's East Cañon Complex, together with six other state correctional facilities of various security levels.
Capital punishment in Delaware was formally abolished in 2024, however it has not been enforced after Delaware’s capital punishment statues were declared unconstitutional by the Delaware Supreme Court on August 2, 2016. The ruling retroactively applies to earlier death sentences, and remaining Delaware death row inmates had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. The capital statute for first-degree murder under Title 11, Chapter 42, Section 09, of the Delaware Code was fully repealed on September 26, 2024.
Robert Charles Gleason Jr. was an American serial killer who was sentenced to death and executed in Virginia for two separate murders of two of his cellmates. Gleason, who was already serving a life sentence for another murder, was an execution volunteer who vowed to continue killing in prison if he was not put to death. Capital punishment was abolished in Virginia on March 24, 2021, officially making Gleason the last person to be executed in Virginia by electrocution.
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