HOUSTON – A Texas man who claimed an intellectual disability in a late attempt at a reprieve was executed Wednesday evening for the killing of a woman who was jogging near her Houston home more than 27 years ago.
Arthur Lee Burton, 54, received a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville and was pronounced dead at 6:47 p.m. local time. He was condemned for the July 1997 killing and attempted rape of Nancy Adleman, a 48-year-old mother of three.
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Burton appeared nervous as he lay strapped to the death chamber gurney and a spiritual adviser prayed briefly over him, the inmate's right leg twitching under a white sheet that covered him from his chest to his feet.
“I want to say thank you to all the people who support me and pray for me,” Burton said when asked by the warden if he had a final statement, his voice repeatedly cracking with a sharp breath after saying several words.
“To all the people I have hurt and caused pain, I wish we didn't have to be here at this moment, but I want you to know that I am sorry for putting y'all through this and my family. I'm not better than anyone. I hope that I find peace and y'all can too.”
He nodded to his brother, Michael, watching through a window nearby, took four gasps as the lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital began taking effect, then appeared to yawn before all movement stopped. He was pronounced dead 24 minutes later.
Adleman had been brutally beaten and strangled with her own shoelace in a heavily wooded area off a jogging trail along a bayou, police said. According to authorities, Burton confessed to killing her, saying “she asked me why was I doing it and that I didn’t have to do it.” He recanted this confession at trial.
Hours before the scheduled execution time, the U.S. Supreme Court declined a defense request to intervene after lower courts had previously rejected Burton's request for a stay.
Burton's lawyers had argued that reports by two experts and the records showed Burton “exhibited low scores on tests of learning, reasoning, comprehending complex ideas, problem solving, and suggestibility, all of which are examples of significant limitations in intellectual functioning.” They had argued the evidence was a strong indication of an intellectual disability that made him "categorically exempt from the death penalty.”
Prosecutors, however, argued that Burton had not previously raised claims of an intellectual disability and that he had waited until eight days before his scheduled execution to do so.
An expert for the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted Burton, said in an Aug. 1 report that he had not seen any evidence Burton suffered from a significant deficit in intellectual or mental capabilities.
“I have not seen any mental health or other notations that Mr. Burton suffers from a significant deficit in intellectual or mental capabilities,” said the report by Thomas Guilmette, a psychology professor at Providence College in Rhode Island.
The Supreme Court in 2002 had barred the execution of intellectually disabled people. But it has given states some discretion to decide how to determine such disabilities.
Burton was convicted in 1998 but his death sentence was overturned by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in 2000. He received another death sentence at a new punishment trial in 2002.
In their petition to the Supreme Court, Burton’s lawyers accused the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals of rejecting their claims of intellectual disability because of “hostility” toward prior Supreme Court rulings that criticized the state’s rules on determining intellectual disability.
In its filing to the Supreme Court, the Texas Attorney General’s Office denied that the state appeals court was refusing to adhere to current criteria for determining intellectual disability.
Burton was the third inmate put to death this year in Texas, the nation’s busiest capital punishment state, and the 11th in the U.S.
On Thursday, Taberon Dave Honie is scheduled to be the first inmate executed in Utah since 2010. He was condemned for the 1998 killing of his girlfriend’s mother.
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Lozano reported from Houston.
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Follow Juan A. Lozano on Twitter: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70