A Texas man who claimed an intellectual disability in a late attempt at a reprieve was executed Wednesday evening for the killing of a woman who was jogging near her Houston home more than 27 years ago, the AP reports. Arthur Lee Burton, 54, received a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville and was pronounced dead at 6:47pm local time. He was condemned for the July 1997 killing and attempted rape of Nancy Adleman, a 48-year-old mother of three. Burton appeared nervous as he lay strapped to the death chamber gurney and a spiritual adviser prayed briefly over him, the inmate's right leg twitching under a white sheet that covered him from his chest to his feet.
"I want to say thank you to all the people who support me and pray for me," Burton said when asked by the warden if he had a final statement, his voice repeatedly cracking with a sharp breath after saying several words. "To all the people I have hurt and caused pain, I wish we didn't have to be here at this moment, but I want you to know that I am sorry for putting y'all through this and my family. I'm not better than anyone. I hope that I find peace and y'all can too." He nodded to his brother, Michael, watching through a window nearby, took four gasps as the lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital began taking effect, then appeared to yawn before all movement stopped. He was pronounced dead 24 minutes later.
Adleman had been brutally beaten and strangled with her own shoelace in a heavily wooded area off a jogging trail along a bayou, police said. According to authorities, Burton confessed to killing her, saying "she asked me why was I doing it and that I didn't have to do it." He recanted this confession at trial. Hours before the scheduled execution time, the US Supreme Court declined a defense request to intervene after lower courts had previously rejected Burton's request for a stay. Prosecutors had argued that Burton had not previously raised claims of an intellectual disability and that he had waited until eight days before his scheduled execution to do so.
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