Johnny Robinson was executed by the State of Florida for the murder of Beverly St. George.
According to court documents Johnny Robinson, who was a convicted sex offender, along with two accomplices would grab Beverly St. George who was brought to a cemetery where she was sexually assaulted and fatally shot
Johnny Robinson was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Johnny Robinson was executed by lethal injection on February 4 2004
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Johnny Robinson FAQ
When Was Johnny Robinson Executed
Johnny Robinson was executed on February 4 2004
Johnny Robinson Case
After a 90-minute delay asked by the U.S. Supreme Court, Johnny L. Robinson was executed Wednesday for the 1985 murder of a Plant City woman in a northeast Florida cemetery. Robinson, 51, was condemned for the fatal shooting of Beverly St. George, whose car had broken down in St. Johns County. He was pronounced dead at 7:34 p.m., said Jacob DiPietre, a spokesman for Gov. Jeb Bush.
He had been scheduled to die by injection at 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison, but just 15 minutes before the process was to begin, the Supreme Court asked the state “to wait for further word” without saying how long that wait might be. Shortly after 7 p.m. the court refused on a 5-4 vote to stop the execution, said JoAnn Carrin, a spokeswoman for state Attorney General Charlie Crist.
Reporters, official witnesses and family members of the victim sat waiting in a room outside the death chamber for 1 1/2 hours before curtains opened at 7:23 p.m. to reveal Robinson, strapped to a gurney with intravenous tubes running to his arms. At one point during the wait, Robinson’s appeal attorney, Peter Cannon, got up and went over to a prison guard and asked, “What is going on with my client?” Cannon said later that he also asked, “Are you torturing my client?” The guard quietly told him to sit back down, which he did.
After the curtain was opened, Robinson was asked by a prison official if he had any last words.”Yep!” he said. Then he said, “Later!” And that was all. As the lethal cocktail flowed into his body, he blinked a few times and his chest heaved several times, as if he were trying to catch his breath. He then became still. Prisons spokesman Sterling Ivey later said Robinson had been kept in his cell from the time of the requested delay until time for the execution sequence to begin. For his final meal, Robinson ordered fried chicken gizzards and hearts, smoked sausage, french fries, butter pecan ice cream and Dr. Pepper. He ate it all .
St. George, 31, was driving to Quantico, Va., to attend a child custody hearing when her car broke done on I-95. She was abducted at gunpoint by Robinson and a co-defendant. She was handcuffed and taken to Pellicer Cemetery, where she was raped, then shot twice in the head. Her husband, Harland St. George Jr., witnessed the execution and told reporters later that he would spend the night “remembering a woman that I shared over 10 years of my life with. “I will drink a toast to her honor, shed a few tears, pray. and, in my own quiet way, say goodbye to her for the last time.”
Cannon had launched a multifaceted attack to try to save his client, but was turned down in court after court, from district court in Jacksonville to an appeals court in Atlanta to the high court. The appeals included arguments that Robinson’s death sentence was the result of racism in St. Johns County and his being black, and that co-defendant Clinton Fields, serving a life sentence in the slaying, recanted his testimony in Robinson’s trial. They also challenged Florida’s method of execution as being cruel and unusual because one of the chemicals used is banned by some states in the euthanizing of animals.
Robinson denied intentionally killing St. George. He said she agreed to go to the cemetery and that during consensual sex, a struggle occurred and his .22-caliber pistol went off, hitting her in the face. He said he shot her again because he did not think people would believe that the first shooting was an accident.
Five days after St. George’s murder, Robinson was arrested for robbing four other people in a disabled car and raping one of them. He was on parole for a Maryland rape at the time.
The handgun used to kill St. George was stolen in a burglary the week before. Robinson was sexually, physically and emotionally abused as a child. He was forced by his grandfather to work in farm fields from the ages of 5 or 6, according to court records.
He was the first person executed this year in Florida, which has executed 55 men and two women since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Paul Hill, 49, who died from lethal injection on Sept. 3, for the shooting deaths of an abortion doctor and his body guard, was the last person executed in Florida. Since 1924, Florida has executed more than 250 state prison inmates and one federal prisoner.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/breaking_news/7875625.htm
