SEATTLE - Historically, the state of Texas has led the nation when it comes to execution of inmates and 2024 will be no different, as the 'Lone Star' state is scheduled to conduct three more executions that would take the state's total to six.
As of August, Texas has executed three men in 2024 with the latest one being inmate Arthur Lee Burton, who was convicted in the July 29, 1997, rape and murder of Nancy Adleman, a 48-year-old Houston mother of three who had been out exercising.
Burton became the third inmate to be executed in Texas in 2024. In total, 12 inmates have been executed across the U.S. this year.
Since 1982, the state of Texas has executed 589 people, 279 of those occurring during the administration of Gov. Rick Perry (2001-14), more than any governor in U.S. history.
The next execution scheduled in the 'Lone Star' state is set for Sept. 24, when Travis Mullis is expected to die by lethal injection. Here's how each inmate's case stands.
Travis Mullis - Scheduled to be executed on Sept. 24
Mullis was found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to death in 2011, three years after sexually assaulting, choking and stomping to death his three-month-old son in Galveston.
In April, Galveston County prosecutors notified District Court Judge Jeth Jones that they were seeking an execution date after Mullis' final appeals of his conviction were dismissed in 2023 by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
"I support my death sentence and want it carried out ASAP," Mullis said in a letter to the Houston Chronicle in 2017. "I was sentenced to death not indefinite detention."
Garcia Glen White - Scheduled to be executed on Oct. 1
White was convicted in 1996 after investigators linked him to the Oct. 1, 1989, stabbing deaths of twin girls Annete and Bernette Edwards. The case, which also involved the death of their mother, Bonita Edwards, went unsolved until 1995, when a tip emerged after the death of a convenience store clerk whom White was also accused of killing.
In 2001, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed White's death sentence but ultimately stayed his execution in 2015 after questions about DNA samples taken from a blanket covering the victims' bodies indicated that, in addition to White, another man had been at the scene.
In June, a judge signed an order scheduling the lethal injection execution for the 61-year-old despite a last-ditch plea by his lawyer to reconsider capital punishment.
White is scheduled to be executed on Oct. 1, 2024, 35 years after the murdered of the 16-year-old twins.
Robert Leslie Roberson III - Scheduled to be executed on Oct. 17
Roberson has been on death row for more than 20 years after he was convicted of killing his sickly two-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis. Doctors that testified during the trial said Nikki's death was consistent with shaken baby syndrome (SBS), in which an infant is severely injured from being shaken violently back and forth.
In 2016, Roberson's execution was stayed and sent back to the trial court when scientific consensus around SBS came into question.
According to the Innocence Project, Roberson's case is "riddled with unscientific evidence, inaccurate and misleading medical testimony, and prejudicial treatment." New evidence presented by Roberson's attorneys in 2021 argued that Nikki died from "severe undiagnosed pneumonia that caused her to cease breathing, collapse, and turn blue before she was discovered unconscious."
Roberson filed a petition with the Supreme Court in May after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied his request for a new trial in 2023.
Prosecutors argued that the science around SBS had not changed as much as his defense attorneys had claimed, and decided that doubt over the cause of his daughter's death was not enough to overturn his death sentence.
In July, the state of Texas agreed on a new date for Roberson's execution who is set to die by lethal injection on Oct. 17.
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