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| Two Texas inmates set to die |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 04/18/2005 |
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The nation's busiest death chamber could be administering a double dose of lethal drugs on Wednesday with two condemned killers set to die then. Douglas Roberts, 42, faces execution for the abduction and fatal stabbing of a San Antonio man in Kendall County in May 1996. Milton Mathis, 26, is scheduled to follow him to the death house gurney for the shooting deaths of two men at a reputed drug house in Fort Bend County. A 15-year-old girl was seriously wounded in the shooting that occurred 10 days before Christmas in 1998. The double execution is unusual but not unprecedented for Texas, where 340 prisoners have been put to death since 1982 when the state resumed carrying out the death penalty after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted its prohibition. Most recently, two prisoners were executed on Aug. 9, 2000. They were among a record 40 prisoners put to death in the state that year. Two executions on the same day also were carried out in 1995 and 1997. The practice earlier last century was much more common. Prison records show at least 28 instances of multiple electrocutions in Texas, including five convicted killers executed Feb. 8, 1924, when the state for the first time used the electric chair in Huntsville. Execution dates are set by district court judges, who get guidance from their district attorneys that appeals in capital cases have progressed to a point where a death date can be set, said Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for the Texas attorney general's office. Roberts received his execution date before Mathis, meaning his lethal injection should occur first. If the same procedures are followed as in previous multiple executions, Mathis will follow him into the chamber about an hour later. Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Mike Viesca said a few extra staff and an additional chaplain would be at the Walls Unit in downtown Huntsville, where executions are carried out, to accommodate the second prisoner. |
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