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| Texas Executes Killer Over Victim's Mother's Objections |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 06/03/2002 |
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A man who killed a convenience store clerk was executed May 22 despite an extraordinary plea by the victim's mother to commute the sentence. Johnny Joe Martinez was apologetic but bitter in a statement and blamed his lawyers for failing to get him off death row. Appeals were rejected. Martinez apologized to the parents of the slain clerk, Clay Peterson. Peterson's mother, Lana Norris, lobbied for his sentence to be reduced to a life term. 'I want to thank you,' he said, referring to Norris, who did not witness the execution. 'It meant a lot to me.' Norris asked the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to spare Martinez, saying she believed he had repented. The board rejected clemency in an unusually close 9-8 vote on May 20. Martinez said he was drunk and had smoked marijuana at a party when he walked into the store where Peterson was working alone about 3 a.m. July 15, 1993. The robbery of $25.65 from the cash register and the gruesome stabbing of the 20-year-old Peterson were caught on videotape by the store's security camera. Martinez was the 13th Texas inmate executed this year and the fourth in the past four weeks. Two more are set to die this week. |
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