Jeffrey Landrigan was executed by the State of Arizona for the murder of Chester Dyer
According to court documents Jeffrey Landrigan had escaped from a work camp in Oklahoma, where he was serving time for murder, and headed to Arizona
Apparently Chester Dyer was making comments of having sex with Landrigan. Dyer would turn up dead as he was strangled with a electrical cord
Jeffrey Landrigan would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Jeffrey Landrigan would be executed by lethal injection on October 26 2010
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When Was Jeffrey Landrigan Executed
Jeffrey Landrigan was executed on October 26 2010
Jeffrey Landrigan Case
n only the second Arizona execution since 2000, convicted killer Jeffrey Landrigan died by lethal injection late Tuesday after the U.S. Supreme Court removed the last legal barrier.
His death came shortly after a curtain opened into the execution room at 10:14 p.m. Tuesday. The condemned man looked quizzically at roughly 27 people gathered to witness the event. He smiled to friends and family, his lip curling slightly under his reddish mustache.
When asked for any last words, he said in a strong voice with a heavy Oklahoma accent: “Well, I’d like to say thank you to my family for being here and all my friends, and Boomer Sooner,” a reference to the University of Oklahoma Sooners. He looked around and smiled again. Then, as the first drug — sodium thiopental — took effect, he slowly closed his eyes. A medical technician entered to check that he was fully sedated. Then the execution continued. Death was pronounced at 10:26 p.m. and the curtain closed.
Landrigan had been on Arizona’s death row for 20 years for the 1989 murder of Chester Dean Dyer in Phoenix.
Landrigan’s execution at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence moved relatively quickly after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted a temporary restraining order that had been imposed Monday by a U.S. District Court judge in Phoenix and affirmed by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court imposed the order as it tried to force Arizona to disclose where and how it had obtained its supply of sodium thiopental, one of three drugs used in Arizona executions. Attorneys had been battling for days over the issue.
The high court, in a terse one-page order issued after 7 p.m. Tuesday, agreed by a 5-4 decision with Arizona prosecutors that there was no reason to force disclosure. “There was no showing that the drug was unlawfully obtained, nor was there an offer of proof to that effect,” the court order said. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented, voting to keep the stay in place. Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and John Roberts were in the majority, lifting the stay.
Going into Landrigan’s final weekend, intensive legal maneuvering by his defense team had sought re-examination of DNA evidence obtained in the case, as well as disclosure of how the state legally obtained its thiopental. Simultaneous arguments were raised in both state and federal courts.
Thiopental is a barbiturate that renders the condemned person unconscious so he or she cannot feel suffocation or pain induced by the second and third drugs administered during execution. The sole U.S. manufacturer and only apparent supplier of thiopental approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has temporarily ceased production of the drug. Landrigan’s attorneys wanted assurances that Arizona’s thiopental had been lawfully obtained and would be effective, so as not to constitute cruel and unusual punishment. The state resisted disclosing the information, citing a state law concealing the identities of executioners and all people with “ancillary” functions needed to carry out the execution. However, Attorney General Terry Goddard revealed to an Arizona Republic reporter late Monday that the drug had come from Britain.
On Tuesday, the Arizona Supreme Court rejected a stay based on the DNA matter, leaving only the federal stay in place. When an appellate panel late Tuesday afternoon agreed to leave the federal restraining order in place until Arizona disclosed more about its thiopental supply, Goddard immediately appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Within several hours, the high court lifted the stay, noting: “There is no evidence in the record to suggest that the drug obtained from a foreign source is unsafe. The district court granted the restraining order because it was left to speculate as to the risk of harm. . . . But speculation cannot substitute for evidence that the use of the drug is ‘sure or very likely to cause serious illness and needless suffering.'”
That sent the Arizona Department of Corrections into motion to carry out the execution. The department had been poised all day, since Landrigan’s execution originally had been scheduled for 10 a.m. Tuesday. Landrigan had already eaten what everyone thought would be his last meal Monday night: a dinner of well-done steak, fried okra, french fries, ice cream and a Dr Pepper.
Landrigan’s execution is the first in Arizona since May 2007, when Robert Comer was put to death for shooting a Florida man at a campground near Apache Lake in 1987.
Landrigan was supposed to be executed Nov. 1, 2007, but another case in the U.S. Supreme Court, this time regarding the constitutionality of execution by lethal injection, put his execution on hold. That case was decided in 2008, and Arizona had overhauled its own lethal injection protocol by 2009, clearing the way to resume executions.
With Landrigan’s execution, there are 133 people on Arizona’s death row. Meanwhile, there are 79 capital cases awaiting trial in Maricopa County, three in trial, and seven in which defendants have been found guilty of first-degree murder but have not yet been sentenced.
