Mildly Retarded Man Executed in Alabama
Horace Franklin Dunkins Jr., a mildly retarded man, was executed in Alabama’s electric chair early today for the 1980 rape-murder of a woman after the U.S. Supreme Court twice turned down last-minute appeals.
Late Thursday, the Supreme Court twice voted, 7 to 2, to deny a stay of execution. Justices William J. Brennan and Thurgood Marshall, who oppose the death penalty in all circumstances, voted to spare the life of Dunkins, 28.
In their first appeal to the high court, defense attorneys urged a stay on the basis of a recent ruling by the court requiring that a defendant’s mental ability be taken into consideration in meting out the death penalty.
Dunkins, who according to court documents has an IQ of 69, was convicted in 1981 of murdering Lynn McCurry, a 26-year-old mother of four who was found stabbed 66 times and bound to a tree behind her home.
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