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#Post#: 531--------------------------------------------------
~ Murray Hooper, 16Nov22, (AZ) ~
By: BuzzC Date: October 26, 2022, 5:58 pm
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Murray Hooper: Arizona prisoner to die by lethal injection, not
gas chamber--
Wednesday, October 26, 2022
[IMG]
HTML https://images.foxtv.com/static.fox10phoenix.com/www.fox10phoenix.com/content/uploads/2022/10/932/524/adde9171-Murray-Hooper-mugshot.jpg?ve=1&tl=1[/img]
PHOENIX - An Arizona prisoner who is scheduled to be executed in
three weeks for two 1980 killings will be put to death by lethal
injection, making him the third condemned person to decline
lethal gas since the state refurbished the chamber where it
carried out the last U.S. execution by gas more than 20 years
ago.
Attorneys for Murray Hooper said on Oct. 26 that he declined to
pick a method of execution when corrections officials asked him
if he wanted to die by lethal injection or the gas chamber.
Lethal injection is Arizona’s default execution method when
condemned prisoners refuse to make a selection.
His lawyers declined to comment on the method by which he would
be executed on Nov. 16 for the killings of William "Pat" Redmond
and Redmond’s mother-in-law, Helen Phelps.
The last lethal gas execution in the United States was carried
out in 1999 in Arizona. The state’s gas chamber at the prison in
Florence, southeast of Phoenix, was dormant as Arizona started
using lethal injection.
Corrections officials have declined to say why they refurbished
the gas chamber and purchased materials to make hydrogen cyanide
gas, which was used in some past U.S. executions and at Nazi
concentration camps during World War II.
Death penalty experts say the United States switched to lethal
injection due to the horrific nature of gas executions, which
they say are slow and leave the condemned gasping for breath and
thrashing in their restraints while appearing to be in
excruciating pain.
Arizona, California, Missouri and Wyoming are the only states
with old gas execution laws still on the books. Arizona is the
only one that still has a working gas chamber.
Deborah Denno, a Fordham Law School professor who has studied
executions for more then 25 years, said it’s not unusual for
death row prisoners to refuse to complete method-of-execution
forms, as condemned people who are depressed and resigned aren’t
likely to be focused on how they will be put to death.
"This is not foremost in their minds in the way it may seem to
someone not in their position," Denno said.
Authorities say Redmond and Phelps were killed after Hooper and
two other men forced their way into Redmond’s home on Dec. 31,
1980. Redmond’s wife, Marilyn, was shot in the head but survived
and testified against Hooper.
Lawyers for Hooper say he is innocent and was in Chicago at the
time of the killings.
Two other men, William Bracy and Edward McCall, were convicted
in the killings but died before their executions could be
carried out.
Authorities say Robert Cruz, who was alleged to have had ties to
organized crime, hired Hooper, Bracy and McCall to kill Pat
Redmond, who co-owned a printing business. They said Cruz wanted
to take over the business and was unhappy that Redmond had
rejected his offers to enter several printing contracts with Las
Vegas hotels, according to court records. In 1995, Cruz was
acquitted of murder charges in both deaths.
Hooper would be the third Arizona prisoner put to death since
the state resumed carrying out executions in May following a
nearly eight-year hiatus attributed to the difficulty of
obtaining lethal injection drugs and criticism that a 2014
execution was botched.
In recent years, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Alabama have passed
laws allowing executions with nitrogen gas, at least in some
circumstances, though experts say it has never been done and no
state has established a protocol that would allow it, according
to the Death Penalty Information Center.
The last prisoner to be executed in a U.S. gas chamber was
Walter LaGrand, the second of two German brothers sentenced to
death for killing a bank manager in 1982 in southern Arizona. It
took LaGrand 18 minutes to die.
Arizona’s gas chamber refurbishment was condemned
internationally, including coverage in Israel and Germany
drawing parallels to Holocaust atrocities.
There are 111 prisoners on Arizona’s death row and 22 have
exhausted their appeals, according to the state attorney
general’s office.
8)
#Post#: 541--------------------------------------------------
Re: ~ Murray Hooper, 16Nov22, (AZ) ~
By: BuzzC Date: November 17, 2022, 1:38 pm
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Arizona man executed for 1980 double murder--
Murray Hooper is the third death row inmate to be executed in
Arizona this year
Wednesday, November 16th, 2022
Death row inmate Murray Hooper was put to death on Wednesday
morning for the murders of a man and his mother-in-law in 1980,
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced.
Hooper, 76, died by lethal injection at 10:33 a.m. at the state
prison in Florence, Arizona.
"The people of Arizona made it clear once again that those who
commit heinous crimes in our state will be held accountable,"
Brnovich said in a statement. "We must never forget the victims
or cease to pursue what justice demands."
Hooper and two other men broke into the Phoenix home of Patrick
Redmond on Dec. 31, 1980, as Redmond prepared for a New Year's
Eve party with his wife and mother-in-law, Helen Phelps.
They bound and gagged all three victims then shot each of them
in the head and slashed Redmond's throat.
Phelps and Patrick Redmond died from their wounds, but his wife
survived and later identified the three men who committed the
murders.
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a last-minute appeal on
Wednesday morning from Hooper. Lower courts previously rejected
attempts by Hooper's attorneys to examine DNA and fingerprints
from the crime scene.
Hooper and the two other men, William Bracy and Edward McCall,
were sentenced to death, but Bracy and McCall died in prison.
Arizona restarted executions this year after an eight-year
hiatus due to the difficulty of acquiring lethal injection drugs
and a 2014 execution that critics say was botched.
Hooper was the third inmate to be put to death in the state this
year. There are 110 other inmates on death row.
8)
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