Two Executed in North Carolina, Arizona

Nov. 9, 2000 -- Michael Earl Sexton went quietly to hisdeath early today as the state executed him for the 1990 rapeand murder of a hospital counselor.

Sexton, 34, made no last statement before he was injected withlethal drugs at Central Prison in Raleigh, N.C.

The family of victim Kimberly Crews, 29, also had no statement.

Her husband, Alan Crews of Raleigh; her parents, Clayton andCleone Futrelle, and her brother, Randy Futrelle, all of Richlands,watched intently through a window separating the death chamber fromthe witness room.

Before closing his eyes as a sleep-inducing drug flowed into hisveins, Sexton turned his head to look at the witnesses. He waspronounced dead at 2:34 a.m today.

‘More Dignified Death Than Life’

Hours earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court and Gov. Jim Hunt rejectedpleas to stop the execution.

“Michael went through this process with great dignity,” saidTracy Barley, one of his attorneys, after she watched him die.“Michael’s death was in some ways much more dignified than hislife.”

Sexton, who worked in the hospital laundry, claimed during his1991 trial in Wake County Superior Court that he and Crews agreedto have sex in a van. He said he killed the woman after sheprotested when he tried to leave.

Irving Joyner, an attorney for Sexton, said his client shouldhave been charged with non-capital murder because there was no rapeand he questioned the nearly all-white makeup of the jury in aracially sensitive case.

Joyner filed two petitions for a stay with the Supreme Court.Both were rejected about eight hours before the 2 a.m. execution.

Execution Proceeded Despite Study

The lawyer also criticized the state for carrying out theexecution while a legislative commission is studying the deathpenalty and whether it has a bias toward blacks. Death penaltyopponents are campaigning for a moratorium on executions until thestudy is complete.

“We would hope at some point North Carolina’s citizens wouldunderstand needless killing…is not going to bring victims ofhomicide back,” Joyner said.

Hunt said evidence showed Sexton was guilty of a capital crime.The governor has granted clemency once in his four terms in office.

Sexton is the third black person among the 16 people put todeath in the state since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977.No other executions have been held in the state so far this year,but two more were scheduled after Sexton. Last year, four peoplewere executed.

Arizona Execution

A Tucson man was executed in Arizona Wednesday night. Donald Miller, 36, had been convicted in Arizona of shootingJennifer Geuder at the behest of his friend, Jose Anthony Luna, thefather of Geuder’s then-1-year-old son.

The two took Geuder to a drive-in movie June 12, 1992, andafterward stopped to pick up Miller’s gun. Later that night, Millershot Geuder once in the back of the head. When she didn’t die, theytook her into the desert east of Tucson and Miller shot her fivemore times. Her body was found the following day.

Luna pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and is serving 39years to life in prison. Miller was convicted and sentenced todeath.

Miller declined to pursue federal appeals, saying he wouldrather die than continue to live in prison. A public defender won alast-minute stay late Tuesday after an appeals court said there wasevidence Miller might not be competent. But that stay was liftedafter the state attorney general’s office appealed.

Miller still had an option to stop the execution if he wanted toappeal, corrections officials said.

Another execution had been scheduled in Pennsylvania but wasstayed by a federal appeals court Wednesday night. Daniel Saranchakwas scheduled to die for the 1993 shooting deaths of hisgrandmother and uncle.

Saranchak, 32, has opposed all appeals on his behalf, butattorneys who formerly represented him are arguing he is notcompetent to waive appeals and have requested legal standing tofile appeals on his behalf.