this shoulda been done a loooooong time ago…… the very ones who argue against the death penalty are the very ones who want to initiate UNARMED VICTUMhood!
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Because of whiny bleeding heart liberal *******s who don’t think
people should be responsible for their actions.

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Just why does it take 17 years to carry out a death sentence?

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URL: This article is:
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/metropolitan/1765288

Feb. 5, 2003, 1:59AM

Killer executed for rape, murder
Court denied 2 requests for stays
By MICHAEL GRACZYK
Associated Press

AP
John Elliott was the seventh person executed by lethal injection in Texas
this year.
HUNTSVILLE — A twice-convicted killer whose dual U.S.-British citizenship
earned him support and much publicity in Great Britain was executed Tuesday
night for fatally beating an Austin woman after raping her almost 17 years
ago.

Asked by the warden if he had anything to say, John Elliott mouthed “No sir”
and nodded his head. He then closed his eyes. As the drugs began to take
effect, he had a slight snort, cough and gasp before slipping into
unconsciousness.

As the lethal drugs continued to flow into his arms, witnesses, including
his son and a sister, prayed aloud.

He was pronounced dead at 7:09 p.m., seven minutes after the drugs started
flowing.

Elliott, 42, was on probation after murder and burglary convictions when he
was arrested for taking part in a gang rape and then whipping Joyce Munguia,
18, two dozen times in the head and face with a chrome-plated motorcycle
chain he used as a belt.

Defense lawyers sought to delay the lethal injection, the seventh this year
in Texas, with court appeals that sought additional DNA tests. The U.S.
Supreme Court denied two late requests for stays. Elliott contended he did
not kill the woman in the June 13, 1986, attack.

Elliott was born in 1960 in England, where his father was stationed at a
U.S. air base, giving him dual citizenship.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw asked Gov. Rick Perry to grant clemency
for Elliott, and more than 100 ministers of Parliament signed a House of
Commons motion demanding clemency.

“It’s given my family hope,” he told BBC Radio. “It’s given us something to
hold on for. That’s no guarantee it’s going to work. There’s no guarantee
they’re not going to execute me.”

Elliott, who said his family returned to the United States when he was 6
months old, declined to speak with American-based media but granted
interviews with numerous British reporters.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, in a vote completed Tuesday
afternoon, rejected requests it recommend the governor issue a commutation,
reprieve or conditional pardon to Elliott. In turning down each request, the
panel’s vote was 18-0.

Evidence at his trial showed Munguia was waiting at a bus stop, engaged in
conversation with a group of men, including Elliott, at a nearby house and
then went off with them. Over the next few hours they shared beer, liquor
and cocaine, and she subsequently had sex with one of them.

According to a witness, she later began crying, was disoriented and asked
for help to walk home. Elliott followed her, then carried her under a
railroad bridge where he and two other men raped her, according to
testimony. When she announced she was going to the police, Elliott beat her
with his belt made from a chain, one of the men there testified.

His shoe prints were at the murder scene. The two other men, who insisted
they did not take part in the slaying, pleaded guilty to rape charges. One
received a 10-year prison term; the other got 15 years. Elliott got death.

Elliott told the BBC he was the victim of zealous prosecutors.

“Sometimes they’ll take certain facts and stretch them,” he said.

But he acknowledged his criminal past “made it easy for them to do that. I
should have led a different life but it’s hard for me to go back.”

In 1982, he went to prison for killing a man in a bar brawl. He was
convicted again in 1984 of attempted burglary. But in an era when Texas
prisons were overcrowded because of a space shortage, he was released under
mandatory supervision after only 4 1/2 months of his eight-year sentence for
murder, then received probation for the burglary.

“It’s terribly frustrating to me,” said Juan Gonzalez, an Austin police
commander who as a homicide sergeant investigated the 1986 killing. “The
poor girl probably would still be alive if he had been in (prison) where he
should have been.”