Man who killed his adoptive parents executed

from: chron.com

July 10, 2008
By MICHAEL GRACZYK
Associated Press

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A very apologetic Carlton Turner was executed Thursday night for the slayings of his adoptive parents a decade ago at their suburban Dallas home.

"I've been sorry for the last 10 years. I wish you could accept my apology," he said to an uncle who watched impassively through a window. "I know you can't give your forgiveness. It's OK. I understand. I know I caused a lot of pain."

Turner said he hoped his family could come to terms with what he did. "I accept the responsibility. I take this penalty as a man. I am sorry."

Seven minutes later, he was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. CDT.

The execution was carried out more than an hour after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his last two appeals. Almost 10 months ago, the Supreme Court had spared him almost four hours after he could have been executed.

His uncle, Kyle Johnson, whose sister was killed in the attack, said afterward he accepted his nephew's apology.

"It took a long time coming," Johnson said. "I didn't think he ever was going to apologize. It makes it easier. He could have chose not to say anything.

"I believe he believes he's sorry for what he did. I believe if he had a choice, was able to go back in time and do it different, we wouldn't be sitting here."

Turner was the second Texas inmate executed this year. At least 14 others are set to die over the next few months, including two more this month.

Turner acknowledged fatally shooting his adoptive parents, then making things worse by telling the jury at his trial that it didn't matter to him if they gave him life in prison or death.

The jury chose death.

"I was immature and arrogant," Turner, who turned 29 last week, told The Associated Press from death row. "I look at life as it is, that these are the cards I'm dealt with. To tell the truth, I'm not sad at all."

But he said he was sorry for the shootings, which he said were prompted by anger and hatred.

"I still loved them," he said. "What I did was wrong. There was a time when I had justification, but that's all wrong."

Turner, who was adopted as an infant, said he shot his father, 43-year-old Carlton Turner Sr., in self-defense after repeated instances of abuse.

"I felt my mother couldn't live without my father," he said, explaining why he killed his mother, Tonya, 40.

His lawyers wanted the Supreme Court to delay the execution so he could get a federally appointed and paid attorney to pursue clemency. They also argued the Texas lethal injection procedures needed to be more thoroughly reviewed.

On Wednesday, his lawyers lost an attempt to have his execution date withdrawn when a state district judge in Dallas refused to grant them more time to investigate claims his trial may have been unfair because jurors improperly were selected on the basis of race. Turner is black and his attorneys alleged the entire jury pool may have been racially selected.

"He was convicted by an all-white jury by what we contend was an extraordinarily discriminatory jury selection practice in a county that has a very long well-documented history of race discrimination in jury selection," said Maurie Levin, a University of Texas law professor representing Turner. "I'm extremely disappointed the court couldn't see fit to wait 90 days to permit us the extra time to explore the claim."

Turner had been a disciplinary problem as a juvenile and at age 14 sexually assaulted an 8-year-old boy. His parents were retired from the Air Force and moved to the Dallas area about a year before the killings. His father worked in sales. His mother worked at a department store.

Evidence showed after the slayings he bought new clothes and jewelry, continued living in the family's Irving home, dragged the bodies into the garage, then threw a party at the house for friends.

Neighbors called police after they hadn't seen the couple in several days and saw Turner acting strangely and driving his parents' cars, something his parents prohibited. He was arrested at home on warrants for outstanding traffic violations. Police were led to the bodies by a foul smell coming from the garage.

"He had such a callous attitude and it didn't bother him at all," said Toby Shook, one of the prosecutors at his trial. "The parents did their best and they wind up dead. He murders them."

Scheduled to die next in Texas is Derrick Sonnier, set for execution July 23 for the 1991 slayings of Melody Flowers, 27, and her 2-year-old son, Patrick, at their apartment in the Houston suburb of Humble.