Corey Hamilton was executed by the State of Oklahoma for four murders committed during a robbery
According to court documents Corey Hamilton and three accomplices would enter a Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken in Tulsa. The four employees were forced into a walk in cooler and each were shot in the back of the head: Joseph Gooch, Theodore Kindley, Senaida Lara and Steven Williams
Corey Hamilton would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Corey Hamilton would be executed by lethal injection on January 9 2007
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When Was Corey Hamilton Executed
Corey Hamilton was executed on January 9 2007
Corey Hamilton Case
Oklahoma executed a man by lethal injection on Tuesday for the 1992 murders of four restaurant employees, the first execution to be carried out in the United States in 2007. Corey Duane Hamilton, 38, was condemned for the gangland-style slayings of Joseph Gooch, Theodore Kindley, Senaida Lara and Steven Williams. The victims were all in their late teens or 20s. All four were shot at close range in the back of the head during a restaurant robbery in east Tulsa, according to the Oklahoma Attorney General’s office.
Hamilton’s was the first of 30 U.S. executions scheduled for this year, according to the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center. Hamilton was also the first person put to death in the United States since California and Florida imposed moratoriums last month on the lethal injection procedure in the wake of botched executions. “It is disturbing that Oklahoma decided to go ahead with this execution without reviewing its protocol. There is no reason why they can’t do what Florida and California are doing,” said Sarah Tofte, a researcher with New York-based Human Rights Watch.
Experts have said that eroding support for capital punishment in the United States is one reason why death sentences fell to a 30-year low last year and why executions hit the lowest level in a decade in 2006. The Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment, said there were 53 executions in 2006, the lowest number since 1996 when there were 45. There were 114 death sentences handed out in 2006, the lowest level in 30 years and down from nearly 300 each year in the 1990s.
But the death sentence still has political support in the United States, where rates for violent and gun-related crimes are high in comparison to other developed countries. In neighboring Texas, five inmates are scheduled to be executed this month — the first slated for Wednesday. Hamilton’s execution was the 84th in Oklahoma since the state reinstituted the death penalty in 1990.
“I wish everybody could experience the love of God the way I have experienced it. I love everybody and hope to see you on the other side,” Hamilton said in his last statement, prison spokesman Jerry Massie said. Hamilton’s last meal was a combination barbecue platter, with chicken, chopped brisket, ribs and hot links, baked beans, bread and barbecue sauce.
