Horace Dunkins was executed by the State of Alabama for a sexual assault and murder
According to court documents Horace Dunkins would sexually assault and murder mother of four Lynn McCurry. McCurry would be stabbed over sixty times
Horace Dunkins would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Horace Dunkins who had an IQ of 69 and the reasoning skills of a 12 year old was not mentioned by his lawyer during sentencing
Horace Dunkins would be executed by way of the electric chair on July 14 1989
Horace Dunkins Photos
Horace Dunkins FAQ
When was Horace Dunkins executed
Horace Dunkins was executed on July 14 1989
How was Horace Dunkins executed
Horace Dunkins was executed by way of the electric chair
Horace Dunkins Case
A ‘human error’ forced Alabama prison officials to use two jolts of power Friday in the execution of a mentally retarded man for repeatedly raping and stabbing a mother of four.
Horace Franklin Dunkins Jr., 28, was pronounced dead at 12:27 a.m., 26 minutes after the execution was supposed to have taken place.
It was the first execution since the Supreme Court ruled two weeks ago that the death penalty can be administered to mentally retarded killers as long as the retardation is considered as a mitigating factor in sentencing.
Dunkins was the 115th person executed in the United States since the Supreme Court lifted its ban on capital punishment in 1976.
Corrections Commissioner Morris Thigpen said a faulty hookup of the electrodes resulted in an insufficient electrical charge on the first attempt to kill Dunkins while his father, an uncle and his attorney watched from the execution chamber.
‘I regret very, very much what happened,’ Thigpen said. ‘It was human error. I just hope that he was not conscious and did not suffer.’
Shelton Foss, a reporter for the Montgomery Advertiser, said confusion broke out in the death chamber following the failed first attempt at the execution.
‘His attorney turned to the family members and started shouting that they were torturing him,’ Foss said. ‘He told them, ‘He’s going through hell in there.”
Thigpen said when doctors checked Dunkins following the first surge of power through his body, they found he was unconscious but had a ‘strong heartbeat.’
‘That was why it was necessary to pass the second charge through his body,’ Thigpen said.
Dunkins was executed for the 1980 slaying of Lynn McCurry, a 26-year-old mother of four who was repeatedly raped, tied to an oak tree behind her home and stabbed 66 times with a kitchen knife. McCurry’s children, ages 18 months to 8 years, were asleep in the house at the time.
The condemned man, who lost his final appeal to the Supreme Court Thursday, made a late, unsuccessful personal plea to talk with Gov. Guy Hunt. He wanted Hunt to witness the execution and urged the governor to read various Biblical scriptures.
Dunkins spent his final hours Thursday visiting with family members, clergy and his attorney, Steve Ellis of Philadelphia. He refused a last meal.
Earlier Thursday, the Supreme Court, with Justices William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall dissenting, rejected without comment Dunkins’ final appeal.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta also refused to intervene, citing the same reasons given by a federal judge who turned down Dunkins’ request for a stay Wednesday.
Ellis had argued that Dunkins’ execution should be stopped because the jury that recommended his death sentence in 1981 was not aware that Dunkins was mentally retarded. Court documents indicate that Dunkins has an intelligence quotient of 69, placing him in the ‘upper part of the mild mental retardation range.’
U.S. District Judge James Hancock ruled Wednesday that even if the jury was not aware of Dunkins’ retardation, the judge who imposed the sentence was because he had received a report from the state mental hospital that tested him.
Hancock, who called the slaying a ‘heinous crime,’ noted that no judge has ever ruled in favor of Dunkins in any of his appeals and ‘there is simply no possibility, much less a probability, that he would succeed on the merits’ of his argument
Hancock’s ruling came the same day the Georgia Supreme Court issued a stay for a mentally retarded heart patient just five hours before he was to die for the 1976 murder of a police chief.
McCurry’s husband, Allen, said Dunkins deserved to die. He said he went to school with Dunkins and did not believe the arguments for a stay.
‘He’s not mentally retarded — he’s just mean as hell,’ McCurry said.
‘I think he deserves it. He’s been found guilty and sentenced to death. It’s not just because it’s him. Anybody that did that would deserve it.’
An accomplice, Frank Marie Harris, who was 17 at the time of the attack, was also convicted and is serving life without parole.
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1989/07/14/Dunkins-executed-in-Alabamas-electric-chair/2240616392000/