Marvin Bieghler was executed by the State of Indiana for a double murder
According to court documents Marvin Bieghler was a marijuana dealer who thought the victim was informing on him. Beighler would go to the home of Tommy Miller and his pregnant wife Kimberly and fatally shot the couple
Marvin Bieghler would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Marvin Bieghler would be executed by lethal injection on January 27 2006
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Marvin Bieghler FAQ
When Was Marvin Bieghler Executed
Marvin Bieghler was executed on January 27 2006
Marvin Bieghler Case
An Indiana inmate was executed early Friday for the 1981 slayings of a Howard County couple, with the lethal injection starting about an hour after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a lower court’s order allowing him a new appeal.
The Supreme Court announced its 6-3 decision less than a half hour before the scheduled time of Marvin Bieghler’s execution. The late court action caused a delay of about 30 minutes in carrying out the execution. Bieghler was pronounced dead at 1:17 a.m. CST, after the injection process started about 12:30 a.m., state Department of Correction spokeswoman Java Ahmed said. His final words were “Let’s get it over with,” Ahmed said.
The Supreme Court’s ruling overturned a federal appeals court decision Thursday night that granted Bieghler, 58, a chance to challenge the legality of lethal injection even though the Supreme Court had rejected a similar appeal just hours earlier. Gov. Mitch Daniels on Thursday had turned down a clemency request.
Bieghler, an admitted drug dealer, was convicted in the deaths of Tommy Miller, 20, and his pregnant wife, Kimberly Jane Miller, 19, whose bodies were found in their mobile home near Russiaville, about 10 miles west of Kokomo.
Bieghler, like Florida inmate Clarence Hill, challenged lethal injection as unconstitutional. Hill contends the three chemicals used in Florida’s method of execution _ the same as those used in Indiana _ cause pain, making his execution cruel and unusual punishment. The Supreme Court said Wednesday it would hear arguments in Hill’s case, with the justices to decide whether a federal appeals court was wrong to prevent Hill from challenging the lethal injection method. Bieghler’s case differed from Hill’s because he was allowed to contest the Indiana execution method and lost.
The Supreme Court has never found a specific form of execution to be cruel and unusual, and the Florida case does not give the court that opportunity. The justices could, however, spell out what options are available to inmates with last-minute challenges to the way they will be put to death.
Bieghler’s attorney, Brent Westerfeld, told justices in a motion Thursday that a “grave injustice may arise” if Bieghler was executed while Hill’s case is pending because there is a chance that Hill will win the right to pursue his claim against lethal injection and eventually win.
The state attorney general’s office argued that Bieghler’s appeal was a delay tactic and that Indiana’s chemical injection method of execution, used since 1996, was constitutional. The state argued that the Constitution does not guarantee a pain-free execution. “Indeed, electrocution is a constitutionally permissible form of execution which is undoubtedly more painful than lethal injection,” the brief said. Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer voted to grant the stay, court spokesman Ed Turner said.
About 25 people protested Thursday night against the death penalty outside the prison. On Monday, the Indiana Parole Board voted unanimously against recommending clemency for Bieghler, and Daniels issued a brief statement Thursday saying he had reviewed Bieghler’s petition and rejected it.
Tommy Miller, one of Bieghler’s victims, had been shot six times and his wife, who was four weeks pregnant, was shot three times. Bieghler told the parole board last week that he did not kill the couple and wanted Daniels to commute his death sentence to time served.
Bieghler was the sixth Indiana inmate to be executed since Daniels took office just over a year ago. He commuted the death sentence of another inmate to life in prison last year.
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