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| High court ruling could affect five N.C. death row inmates |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 02/02/2004 |
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The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to consider ending the execution of killers who were under 18 when they committed their crimes could affect five men on North Carolina's death row. Two are among the state's most notorious convicted killers - Francisco Tirado, convicted of a double murder that was part of gang initiation, and Kevin Golphin, convicted in the murder of a state Highway Patrol trooper and a sheriff's deputy. North Carolina law allows people to be executed for crimes committed when they were as young as 17, said Keith Acree, spokesman for the state Department of Correction. Younger people can be executed if they commit a murder while behind bars for another murder, he said. Tirado, 22, was 17 when he was involved in a double murder that was part of a gang initiation, Acree said. Although news reports at the time of the murders indicated he was 18, state records show he was born in April 1981, making him 17 at the time of the August 1998 shootings. Tirado was one of three people sentenced to death for the execution-style murders of Susan Moore and Tracy Lambert. The two were abducted near Lambert's home in Hope Mills, taken to a field in rural Cumberland County, forced to kneel and shot in the head. A Supreme Court ruling also could affect Kevin Golphin, 24. Along with his older brother, Tilmon, Golphin was convicted in the September 1997 shooting deaths of Highway Patrol Trooper Ed Lowry and Cumberland County Sheriff's Deputy David Hathcock The high court said last Monday it would hear the case of a Missouri man who was 17 when he robbed a woman, wrapped her head in duct tape and threw her off a railroad bridge in 1993. Missouri's highest court has declared it unconstitutional to execute people for killings committed when they are younger than 18. |
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