DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
~ Just Retribution ~
HTML https://justretribution.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: Executed
*****************************************************
#Post#: 298--------------------------------------------------
~ John King, 24Apr19, (TX) ~
DIR By: BuzzC
Date: February 1, 2019, 10:17 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Texas dragging death killer 1 step closer to execution--
October 30, 2018
[IMG]
HTML https://media.nbcdfw.com/images/1200*675/john-king-death-row.jpg[/img]
HOUSTON (AP) — A prisoner on Texas death row for dragging a
black man to death behind a pickup truck more than two decades
ago is one step closer to execution after the U.S. Supreme Court
turned down his appeal.
The high court on Monday denied without comment 43-year-old John
William King’s appeal. He claimed he had ineffective lawyers at
trial.
King was sentenced to death for the June 1998 slaying of James
Byrd Jr., who prosecutors say was targeted because of his race.
Byrd was chained to the back of the truck and dragged along a
road outside Jasper in East Texas.
One of two other white men convicted has been executed. The
third is serving life.
Former Jasper County Sheriff Billy Rowles tells KFDM-TV the case
is “nearing an end.”
8)
#Post#: 312--------------------------------------------------
Re: ~ John King, 24Apr19, (TX) ~
DIR By: BuzzC
Date: April 21, 2019, 1:08 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Texas town reflects on dragging death ahead of execution--
Easter Sunday, April 21st, 2019
JASPER, Texas – A Texas town is still haunted by a gruesome hate
crime in which a black man was dragged behind a pickup truck and
killed by three white men nearly 21 years ago.
The history of Jasper will be revisited Wednesday, when the
ringleader responsible for the brutal 1998 killing of James Byrd
Jr. is scheduled to be executed.
Jasper leaders say their community's reputation as a place of
racial unrest and intolerance is undeserved.
But other townspeople, as well as members of Byrd's family,
believe Jasper has never fully accepted the crime's place in its
history. They say some tensions between the white and black
communities remain unresolved.
Byrd's family still hopes to build a multicultural center and
museum in Jasper to promote diversity and education.
HTML http://www.foxnews.com/us/texas-town-reflects-on-dragging-death-ahead-of-execution
8)
#Post#: 313--------------------------------------------------
Re: ~ John King, 24Apr19, (TX) ~
DIR By: BuzzC
Date: April 23, 2019, 9:02 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
James Byrd Jr.’s Family Ready for Execution of Racist Who
Dragged Him to Death--
It’s been 20 years since three men chained Byrd to a pickup
truck—shocking the nation’s conscience.
Tuesday, April 23, 2019
Louvon Byrd has already watched one man die for the horrific
hate crime against her brother. Later this week, she intends to
do it again.
John William King, the ringleader of a trio of racists who
dragged James Byrd Jr. to death 20 years ago, is set to be
executed by the state of Texas on Wednesday. Louvon will witness
the lethal injection, barring the success of any last-minute
appeals.
“He’s trying to save his life by all means necessary,” she told
The Daily Beast. “But he did live 20 years longer than my
brother… and I think that speaks a lot. The punishment would be
just to take an injection and go to sleep, and even at that I
still think he’s getting off easy.”
Byrd, a 49-year-old father of three, was walking home from a
friend’s anniversary party on Martin Luther King Boulevard in
Jasper, Texas, during the early hours of June 7, 1998, when
three white men kidnapped him and brought him to an isolated
rural road.
They chained Byrd by his ankles to the back of a pick-up truck
and drove for nearly three miles, dismembering him. They left
parts of Byrd in front of a local black cemetery. The rest of
him was found a mile and a half up the road.
Byrd’s family had to relive the gruesome details at three
capital murder trials.
“Imagine the family going through three trials and listening to
that over and over again to prove kidnapping… at what point was
he bound, at what was his head decapitated,” Louvon Byrd said.
“But we had to do it, because for justice you have to go beyond
what you’re feeling, because it’s nothing close to what James
went through that night.”
King and his accomplices, Shawn Allen Berry and Lawrence Russell
Brewer, were convicted. King and Brewer were sentenced to death,
and Brewer was executed in 2011. Berry is eligible for parole in
2038.
In recent years, King, 44, has filed a string of unsuccessful
appeals to avoid the needle, claiming his defense was
inadequate. It would be stunning if King—who is covered in
white-supremacy tattoos, including one of a black man hanging
from a tree—were granted clemency.
The crime—along with the torture murder of gay college student
Matthew Shepard four months later—shocked the nation’s
conscience and spurred Congress to pass hate crimes legislation
in their names.
“I really believe if we had a strong hate crime law they would
have thought twice,” Byrd said of her brother’s killers. “They
were so convinced that they would be OK and that they would get
away with it.”
Byrd’s family is also trying to make sure that he is remembered
in Jasper, a town of less than 8,000 evenly divided between
black and white residents which, even after 20 years, is known
mainly for the depravity that took place there.
“I know there are individuals who hate that it happened in
Jasper and want it to be forgotten, but we never can do that,
the family will not let that happen. Because, once you are quiet
about anything, before you know it you’re back in that
situation,” Louvon Byrd said. “We’re trying to by all means keep
his legacy going, with or without the town’s support.”
“I always look at the anniversary and (the town’s) participation
to see where their mindset is, and so far this has been the
family trying to keep it going rather than the town,” Byrd said.
Last year, on the 20th anniversary, the Byrd Foundation for
Racial Healing, which was started and is run by the family,
installed a bench at the town’s courthouse inscribed with the
words: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”
His sister says the bench has since been moved to a less
accessible location and she feels there is waning support for
the family’s efforts, which include plans for a multicultural
center and an archive of oral histories of hate.
The interim mayor, Gary Gatlin, told the Associated Press that
no one is trying to minimize the tragedy, but added, “We’ve just
tried to move on.”
The Byrds, though, cannot move on. And one of their goals is to
have the public remember James for not just how he died but how
he lived.
He was, his sister said, “a people person,” a salesman by trade,
and a musician by heart.
“He played the trumpet, he was a piano player… He was known for
his music,” she said.
Today, Byrd would be 70 years old. His daughter is now a police
officer in Houston, Texas, and a granddaughter is about to
graduate from college.
“He missed out on a lot... Most people identify him as a crime,
but I like when people identify him as a person,” Louvon said.
“James loved people, and he’d like to make a difference.”
“Since he loved music so much, he always would say: ‘You laugh
now, but one day I’m going to put Jasper on the map. Just wait
and see,’” she recalled. “At the time he was thinking it would
be because of his music—but never in his life was he thinking it
would be because of his death.”
HTML http://www.thedailybeast.com/james-byrd-jrs-family-ready-for-execution-of-john-william-king-who-dragged-black-man-to-death-in-jasper-texas?ref=scroll
8)
#Post#: 314--------------------------------------------------
Re: ~ John King, 24Apr19, (TX) ~
DIR By: BuzzC
Date: April 24, 2019, 9:32 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
John William King put to death in Texas--
Convicted in murder of James Byrd Jr. in 1998
Wednesday, April 24, 2019
Huntsville, Tex. - A man who helped carry out the dragging death
of James Byrd Jr. -- one of the most horrific hate crimes in
modern American history -- was executed by injection on
Wednesday evening in a Texas prison.
John William King, 44, was one of three men convicted for the
murder. He is the second person to die for the crime that made
news around the world and helped inspire Congress to pass
federal hate crime legislation.
King was pronounced dead at 7:08 p.m. (8:08 p.m. ET) at Texas
State Penitentiary at Huntsville.
According to Jeremy Desel with the Texas Department of Criminal
Justice, King had his eyes closed and replied "No" to the warden
when asked whether he had any last words.
King did give a written statement that said, "Capital
Punishment: Them without the capital get the punishment."
Desel said the execution was delayed because the case went to
the U.S. Supreme Court before moving ahead at 6:56 p.m.
Clara Byrd Taylor said while watching her brother's killer die
she felt nothing.
"There was no sense of relief," she said.
She called the execution a "just punishment."
King showed no remorse, not Wednesday, not ever, she said.
The killer had his eyes closed the entire time he was on the
gurney, Desel said, and only moved once, taking one deep breath
as the execution started.
Byrd's acquaintances told police they'd seen Byrd, who was
black, at a party the night of June 6, 1998, that he'd left
around 2 a.m. and was later seen riding in the bed of a pickup
with three white men in the cab.
Authorities said King, Lawrence Russell Brewer and Shawn Berry
picked up Byrd and drove him to a secluded area where they beat
him and spray-painted his face before tying a logging chain
around his ankles and dragging him behind a pickup truck for
almost 3 miles.
Brewer died by injection in 2011. Berry was sentenced to life in
prison and is eligible for parole in 2038.
While most murders are brutal, the viciousness of Byrd's killing
shocked the world. NBA star Dennis Rodman came forward to pay
for Byrd's funeral. Filmmakers produced multiple documentaries.
Artists including Geto Boys, Drive-By Truckers and Will Smith
referenced the violent saga in their songs. Maryland poet
laureate Lucille Clifton penned an ode to Byrd.
Most importantly, the 49-year-old's slaying spurred Texas and
Congress to push through hate crime legislation. The federal act
is often associated with the killing of Matthew Shepard, a gay
student beaten to death in Wyoming, but the full name of the law
is the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention
Act.
King had long maintained his innocence, once sending a letter to
the Dallas Morning News that would later be used against him. He
had said the evidence presented in his case was circumstantial
and that Berry was solely responsible for Byrd's death.
King has repeatedly appealed his guilty verdict, claiming
ineffective assistance from his counsel, but a federal appeals
court upheld his conviction last year, and the U.S. Supreme
Court declined to hear his case in October.
Though the motive was never specifically outlined, race was a
theme in King's trial. Prosecutors presented evidence that King
had been an "exalted cyclops" of the white supremacist
Confederate Knights of America and regularly drew lynching
scenes.
King was the third prisoner executed in Texas this year, after
cop killer Robert Mitchell Jennings and triple murderer Billie
Wayne Coble.
8)
*****************************************************
Page 1 of 1