A Texas man who unsuccessfully challenged the safety of the state’s lethal injection drugs and raised questions about evidence used to persuade a jury to sentence him to death for killing an elderly woman decades ago was executed late Tuesday.
Jedidiah Murphy, 48, was pronounced dead after an injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the October 2000 fatal shooting of 80-year-old Bertie Lee Cunningham of the Dallas suburb of Garland. Cunningham was killed during a carjacking.
“To the family of the victim, I sincerely apologize for all of it,” Murphy said while strapped to a gurney in the Texas death chamber and after a Christian pastor, his right hand on Murphy’s chest, prayed for the victim’s family, Murphy’s family and friends and the inmate.
“I hope this helps, if possible, give you closure,” Murphy said.
I took the comment you replied to as a topic of how we change as people rather than not wanting criminals to be punished. I do agree people who murder and commit other violent crimes should be punished but doing it nearly double the age you committed the crime at is like punishing a different person, assuming they grow like most people.
Again I want to state I don’t think they should have been let off or treated lightly, murdering anyone let alone the more vulnerable is a heinous act and deserves stiff punishment if we want to remain a just society. Just wanted to comment on a more philosophical side where we mature and are rarely the same person 20 years later so there seems to be a bit of a gap in justice being done timely. I’d rather die sooner than living in prison for a couple decades but I say that who has never been so maybe my opinion doesn’t meant much.