মিসিসিপিতে এক কলেজ ছাত্রীকে ধর্ষণ ও হত্যার দায়ে দোষী সাব্যস্ত হওয়া এক ব্যক্তির মৃত্যুদণ্ড কার্যকর করা হয়েছে
A Mississippi man was executed on Wednesday after being convicted of the 1993 kidnapping, rape, and murder of a 20-year-old community college student. Charles Crawford, 59, was pronounced dead at 6:15 p.m. at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman following a lethal injection. Crawford had been on death row for over 30 years.
His execution comes just months after the execution of Mississippi’s longest-serving death row inmate as executions rise across the country. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Crawford is one of nine executions this year, bringing the total to 37.
Crawford was convicted of kidnapping Christy Rake from her parents’ home in Tippah County, North Mississippi on January 29, 1993. When Rake’s mother arrived home, her daughter’s car was gone and a handwritten ransom note had been left on the table, according to court records. The same day, a different ransom note about a woman named Jennifer, cut from magazines, was found in the attic of Crawford’s former father-in-law. The note was turned over to law enforcement, who began a search for Crawford. He was arrested one day later, saying he was returning from a hunting trip. He later told authorities that he had blacked out and did not remember killing Rake.
At the time of his arrest, Crawford was days away from appearing in court on a separate assault charge. The trial stemmed from a 1991 attack where Crawford was accused of raping a 17-year-old girl and hitting her friend with a hammer. Despite his claims that he had blacked out and did not remember the rape or hammer attack, Crawford was convicted of both charges in two separate trials. His previous rape conviction was considered an “aggravating circumstance” by jurors in Crawford’s capital murder trial, which resulted in the death penalty.
Given a chance to make a final statement, Crawford said, “Family, I love you. I’m at peace. I have the peace of my God,” adding: “I’ll be in paradise.” Addressing the Rake family, he said: “To the victim’s family, true closure and true peace, you can’t get it without God.”
Over the last three decades, Crawford made several unsuccessful attempts to have his death sentence overturned. In a ruling issued minutes before the execution, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to halt the execution without explanation. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
His attorneys had appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that Crawford should be granted a new trial because his Sixth Amendment rights were violated at his 1994 trial. During appeals, Crawford’s attorneys alleged that Crawford was convicted of capital murder after his attorney entered an insanity defense despite Crawford’s repeated objections. The claim was based on a 2018 Supreme Court decision that ordered a new trial for a death row inmate and found that a criminal defendant’s attorney cannot override his client’s wishes to maintain his innocence at trial.
“It’s as if he never even got the opportunity to be found guilty or not guilty because his attorney overrode his wishes from the very beginning,” said Krissi Noebel, director of the Mississippi Office of Capital Post-Conviction Assistance, which represented Crawford. The Mississippi Supreme Court rejected the argument in September, writing that Crawford should have filed his appeal sooner and did not provide sufficient reasons why the 2018 Supreme Court decision should be retroactive.
After the Mississippi Supreme Court set his execution date in September, Noebel said Crawford expressed both despair and resolve. Noebel described Crawford as a dignified, uplifting presence on death row. She said he worked in the prison and advocated for other inmates. Mark McCurdy, chief of operations for the Mississippi Department of Corrections, said at a news conference that Crawford had met with his family and a preacher on Wednesday afternoon. The Associated Press made multiple attempts to contact Rake’s relatives but received no response. Crawford also did not respond to requests for comment.
This lethal injection was the third in the United States in two days after executions in Florida and Missouri on Tuesday. A total of 38 men have been executed in the United States so far this year, by order of the courts. In Florida, Samuel Lee Smothers, 72, was executed for the 1996 murders of two women whose bodies were found in a rural pond. In Missouri, Lance Shockley was executed by lethal injection after the state’s governor rejected a plea for clemency. Shockley was convicted of first-degree murder for fatally shooting a Missouri State Serviceman in 2005.
Six more executions are scheduled to take place in 2025; the next execution is of Richard Zuercher, who was convicted of killing four members of a family in Arizona nearly 30 years ago. Alabama inmate Anthony Boyd is scheduled to be executed later this month for a 1993 murder. He has maintained his innocence, saying, “I didn’t kill nobody. I had nothing to do with no killing.” He was convicted of capital murder and kidnapping in the 1995 death of George Hulett, and the jury voted 10-2 to recommend he be sentenced to death.
প্রকাশিত: 2025-10-16 06:11:00
উৎস: www.cbsnews.com
