Paul Hill was executed by the State of Florida for a double murder
According to court documents Paul Hill was an active anti-abortionist when he would shoot and kill Dr. John Bayard Britton and his bodyguard, retired Lt. Col. James Herman Barrett as they entered a Florida abortion clinic
Paul Hill would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Paul Hill would be executed by lethal injection on September 3 2003
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When Was Paul Hill Executed
Paul Hill was executed on September 3 2003
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Paul Hill, the defiant former minister who called himself pro-life yet gunned down a Pensacola abortion doctor, was put to death peacefully by injection Wednesday night.
To the end, the man who became the first killer of an abortion doctor to be executed in the United States showed no remorse and, in his final words, spurred antiabortion activists to follow his lead. ”If you believe abortion is a lethal force, you should oppose the force and do what you have to do to stop it,” he said, strapped to the gurney at Florida State Prison, his face without expression. “May God help you to protect the unborn as you would want to be protected.”
Hill, 49, went to his death arguing that the 1994 shotgun slaying of Dr. John Britton was justified because Britton was ”killing children.” The execution reignited fears that the militant wing of the extreme antiabortion movement will use his death as a catalyst for renewed violence. Two weeks ago, death threat letters containing rifle bullets were sent to top state officials involved with the execution, but a resolute Gov. Jeb Bush, who signed Hill’s death warrant, said he wouldn’t be ”bullied” and refused to halt the execution.
Still, fears that Hill’s death would inspire an attempt to disrupt the execution led to the tightest security since serial killer Ted Bundy was electrocuted in 1989 in the same death chamber. Prison officials wouldn’t release the names of the two dozen people who witnessed the execution, citing the ongoing criminal investigation into the death threats. But there were few incidents, despite the collision of two of the nation’s most controversial issues — abortion and the death penalty.
Across the road from the prison, about 60 antiabortion activists held a quiet prayer vigil in a muddy field under threatening clouds and drizzle, outnumbered by the nearly 100 police officers. The protesters, some carrying Bibles and rosary beads, held up signs decrying Bush as a ”baby killer’s helper” and depicting graphic pictures of aborted fetuses.
`HEAVENS DARKENED’
A massive thunderclap rattled the sky just as Hill was scheduled to die at 6 p.m., and a howl went up from the crowd, hailing the weather as a sign from above. ”When they crucified Jesus, the heavens darkened,” said Neal Horsley, a Carrolton, Ga., activist whose newsletter, The Abortion Abolitionist, treats Hill as a hero. “Speak to this nation, O Lord, speak your wrath.” Inside the death chamber, thunder cracked and the lights flickered moments before Hill made his last statement.
The day before his execution, Hill told reporters that he was sure he would be rewarded in heaven for his actions. He said he was following God’s instructions when he shot Britton in the driveway of the Ladies Center, a Pensacola abortion clinic, on July 29, 1994. He also killed Britton’s escort, James Barrett, 69, and wounded Barrett’s wife, June. Across the nation, clinic owners braced for retaliation by antiabortion extremists who may see Hill as a martyr.
At the vigil outside the prison, Joshua Graff, 29, who served three years in prison for a 1993 Texas clinic abortion bombing, declared Hill’s death probably the single most monumental event in the history of the movement.'' Antiabortion websites had provided maps to the prison, and protesters came from across the country, including one couple who made a two-day trek from Iowa at the wheel of a van plastered with antiabortion slogans. ''Never before have they killed one of us,'' Graff said.Paul Hill is dying a martyr. He’s dying a righteous death for upholding the truth and preserving innocent lives.”
Abortion providers in South Florida increased vigilance Wednesday, with several noting that they have been on high alert almost since Bush signed Hill’s death warrant in July. ”The reality is that people have been murdered before, and these zealots rabble-rouse and incite, and are not held accountable to the point that they need to be,” said Mona Reis, director of the Presidential Women’s Center in West Palm Beach.
Moderate antiabortion activists say Hill’s violence has set back the movement, and a group of Catholic priests who attended an anti-death-penalty vigil across from the prison decried his actions. ”All life is sacred and all killing is wrong,” said pastor Phil Egitto of Our Lady of Lourdes in Daytona Beach. “The state killing Paul Hill is wrong, Paul Hill killing is wrong and the abortion doctor killing, it’s all wrong. To say any of it is right in the name of the Lord is to not recognize the sanctity of human life.”
MADE THE CHOICE
Though Hill, who grew up in Coral Gables, said he didn’t know he would be executed for killing an abortion doctor, he said he was sure that committing what he called ”justifiable homicide” would cause him to suffer one of the greatest punishments for a pro-family Christian: the absence of his wife and children.
In writings from prison, the one-time Presbyterian minister said he weighed the options and decided that killing an abortion doctor was more important. But he didn’t act instantly. He settled on the idea a week before, when a fellow protester told him that Britton often arrived earlier at the abortion clinic than his police guard.
”This information was like a bright, green light, signaling me on,” Hill wrote in a Web-based treatise, Defending the Defenseless, while in prison. Activists on Wednesday distributed copies of the work, along with Horsley’s newsletter, imploring reporters “to tell the truth about the horror of abortion.”
In it, Hill wrote that he hid his intentions from his wife, taking his family on a last day at the beach, where he choked back tears at the ”happy and serene” scene of his children playing in the surf.
He spent Wednesday morning visiting with his wife, Karen, his 18-year-old son Justin, his parents and two sisters. He spent his final hours with his spiritual advisor, Donald Spitz, a Pentecostal minister who witnessed the execution and said later that Hill died with “joy in his heart.” ”He knew what he did was right, he willingly gave his life for the unborn,” Spitz said.
