In a last-ditch effort to win a reprieve, a Texas man claimed to have an intellectual handicap and was executed on Wednesday night for the murder of a lady who was jogging close to her Houston home more than 27 years ago.
At 6:47 p.m. local time, Arthur Lee Burton, 54, was declared dead following a fatal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was found guilty of killing 48-year-old mother of three Nancy Adleman in July 1997 and attempting to rape her.
According to authorities, Adleman was viciously assaulted and strangled with her own shoelace in a densely forested spot off a jogging track by a bayou.
The investigators claim that Burton admitted to killing her, claiming that “she asked me why was I doing it and that I didn’t have to do it.” During the trial, he renounced this admission.
Burton’s stay request had been denied by lower courts, and hours before the scheduled injection time, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a defense motion to intervene.
Two experts’ reports and the documents, according to Burton’s attorneys, demonstrated that the man “exhibited low scores on tests of learning, reasoning, comprehending complex ideas, problem solving, and suggestibility, all of which are examples of significant limitations in intellectual functioning.” They claimed that because of the compelling evidence of his intellectual handicap, he was “categorically exempt from the death penalty.”
On the other hand, the prosecution maintained that Burton had not previously asserted any intellectual handicap and had only done so eight days prior to his planned execution.
In a report released on August 1, an expert with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office—the prosecuting attorney’s office for Burton—stated that he had not noticed any indication that Burton had a severe intellectual or mental disability.
According to the study, psychology professor Thomas Guilmette of Providence College in Rhode Island wrote, “I have not seen any mental health or other notations that Mr. Burton suffers from a significant deficit in intellectual or mental capabilities.”
In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled against the execution of individuals with intellectual disabilities. However, it has granted states some latitude in determining what constitutes a disability of this kind.
Burton was found guilty in 1998, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed his execution verdict in 2000. In 2002, he was found guilty again of capital penalty during a fresh trial.
Burton’s attorneys claimed in their Supreme Court petition that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied their claims of intellectual impairment due to “hostility” toward earlier decisions by the Court that attacked the state’s guidelines for assessing intellectual disability.
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The Texas Attorney General’s Office refuted claims made in a submission to the Supreme Court that the state appeals court was not following the most recent standards for diagnosing intellectual impairment.
Burton was the eleventh prisoner executed in the United States and the third inmate executed in Texas this year, the state with the highest death toll.
Ramiro Gonzales was put to death last month on the day that his young victim would have turned 41. Ivan Cantu, a murderer who had been found guilty but maintained his innocence, was executed in Huntsville in February.
Taberon Dave Honie is set to be executed on Thursday, marking the first execution in Utah since 2010. He was found guilty of killing his girlfriend’s mother in 1998.
