Willie Fisher was executed by the State of North Carolina for the murder of Angela Johnson
According to court documents Willie Fisher would go over to a home where his girlfriend Angela Johnson was staying and would attack the woman with a knife and a broken broomstick. Johnson sixteen year old daughter was also injuring trying to protect her mother
Willie Fisher would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Willie Fisher would be executed by lethal injection on March 9 2001
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When Was Willie Fisher Executed
Willie Fisher was executed on March 9 2001
Willie Fisher Case
Willie Ervin Fisher, who stabbed his girlfriend to death with a knife and a broken broomstick, was executed Friday evening at the end of a long day of judicial parrying over his fate.
About 19 hours after his execution was originally to have occurred, Fisher, 39, was put to death by injection at Central Prison. He was pronounced dead at 9:21 p.m., Correction Department spokeswoman Tracy Little said.The U.S. Supreme Court, without dissent, had denied a stay of execution Friday afternoon, the second time this week it had rebuffed Fisher’s appeals.
The execution was supposed to have occurred at 2 a.m. Friday, but was blocked by Superior Court Judge Howard Manning Jr., who said Gov. Mike Easley – a former state attorney general – might have had a conflict of interest when he denied Fisher clemency Thursday evening.
The state Supreme Court lifted the stay at about 4:45 a.m. and the execution was rescheduled, pending the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision.
Little said Fisher had slept most of the morning, then visited with his sisters, Sally and Anna Fisher, and niece Ria Fisher in the afternoon. He also saw a social worker and his attorneys.
Outside the prison gates, where death penalty opponents had gathered Thursday night, no sign of protests could be seen a couple of hours before the rescheduled execution.
Manning granted his stay after Fisher’s lawyers questioned whether Easley could make an impartial decision about clemency because he had opposed Fisher’s appeals while he was attorney general.
Prosecutors responded by citing a 1998 federal appeals court ruling in a similar case involving Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, in which the appeals court overturned a lower court’s restraining order and allowed an execution to proceed.
Ironically, if Fisher's argument is correct, under the North Carolina constitution, there is no one who could grant clemency to him, or for that matter, to any other capital defendant in this state,' prosecutors said in their petition to the state Supreme Court.Gov. Easley is the only person under our constitution with the power of clemency; he must be permitted to exercise it if he so wishes.’
Easley said he had carefully reviewed Fisher’s case and decided not to commute his sentence to life in prison, citing the “heinous nature’ of Angela Johnson’s murder in 1992.
lothes off and stabbed her repeatedly.
When Johnson’s 12-year-old daughter hit Fisher with a broomstick, he stabbed the girl, then used the broomstick to stab Johnson again.
Defense lawyers also unsuccessfully argued to Easley that jury selection in Fisher’s trial was biased because Fisher is black and the jury was made up of 11 whites and one black.
They also argued the murder was committed after Fisher went on a drinking binge and smoked crack cocaine, and that his trial attorney, David Tamer, didn’t present a proper defense.
Those claims were rejected by the state court and U.S. Supreme Court
