ROBERT BLECKER WANTS ME DEAD [THE EXECUTION OF DARYL HOLTON (NOVEMBER 23, 1961 TO SEPTEMBER 12, 2007)]

            On this date, September 12, 2007, Daryl Keith Holton was executed by the electric chair in the Tennessee. He was convicted of murdering four children (3 of them were his sons) on November 30, 1997.  He needed a suicide assist and decided to choose the electric chair, instead of the lethal injection. I will post information about him from Wikipedia.

SOURCE: http://off2dr.com/smf/index.php?topic=1405.15

INTERNET SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Holton

Daryl Keith Holton (November 23, 1961 – September 12, 2007) was an American convicted child killer, executed by electrocution by the state of Tennessee on September 12, 2007 in Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.

All four children, twelve-year-old Stephen Edward Holton, ten-year-old Brent Holton, six-year-old Eric Holton, and four-year-old Kayla Marie Holton, were shot to death with a Russian SKS semi-automatic assault rifle.

Crime

Holton, a Gulf War Veteran, was 36 years old when he shot his three young sons and their half-sister (Stephen Edward Holton (12), Brent Holton (10), Eric Holton (6), and Kayla Marie Holton (4)) with a Chinese-made semi-automatic rifle on November 30, 1997, at the garage where he worked in Shelbyville, Tennessee. Holton was divorced, and his ex-wife had custody of the children. About an hour later, Holton turned himself in to the Shelbyville police; he told investigators that he had killed the children because "families should stay together; a father should be with his children." He said he had also planned to kill his ex-wife and then himself, but had changed his mind.

Daryl Holton

Trial

At his June 1999 trial, Holton declined to testify on his own behalf, although his attorney sought to convince the jury that Holton was mentally incompetent at the time of the killings. Holton was found guilty and sentenced to death.

During his imprisonment, Holton became an amateur legal expert, and he took steps to ignore the automatic and voluntary appeals process afforded to all condemned men and women under state and U.S. law. He also declined to cooperate with the state- or federally-appointed capital defenders who sought to offer him legal assistance and counsel. For this reason, he is often included among the group described as death row "volunteers."

Daryl Holton

Execution

Holton chose to die in the electric chair, rather than by lethal injection, which is now the standard method of execution in Tennessee. Death-row inmates who committed their capital crime when the electric chair was still the official execution method are permitted to choose between the two methods. Holton was the first person to be executed by electrocution in Tennessee in 47 years.

Moments before his execution, prison warden Ricky Bell asked Holton if he had any final words. He replied: "Two words: I do". He decided against the traditional special last meal before his execution and instead, ate the regular prison meal which consisted of riblets on a bun, mixed vegetables, baked beans, white cake with white icing and iced tea.

Holton's was the fourth execution in Tennessee since 2000 and first by the electric chair since 1960 (the last Pre-Furman execution). As of the present time, this has been the only use of Tennessee's electric chair after it was retrofitted by now-discredited Holocaust denier Fred A. Leuchter. Holton was the third death row inmate executed under administration of Governor Phil Bredesen. He was also the first American put to death by electrocution since July 20, 2006. The last was Brandon Wayne Hedrick in Virginia, who also chose electrocution over injection.

Controversy

His case raised some controversy because of rumors about his history of mental illness. Whilst execution of the mentally retarded was prohibited by the U.S. Supreme Court case Atkins v. Virginia of 2002, the execution of the mentally ill has never been held to be in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

Holton, his motives, and the ethics of his execution are examined in the documentary film Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead.

INTERNET SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Blecker_Wants_Me_Dead

Directed by	Ted Schillinger
Produced by	Bruce David Klein
Starring	Robert Blecker
Cinematography	Ted Schillinger Matthew Howe
Editing by	Kendrick Simmons
Release date(s)	April 25, 2008 (USA Film Festival) February 27, 2009
Running time	90 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead is an independent documentary film about retributivist death penalty advocate Robert Blecker and his relationship with Daryl Holton, a death row inmate who murdered his four children. The film was directed by Ted Schillinger and produced by Bruce David Klein.

The film was completed in November 2007 and made its world premiere on April 25, 2008, at the USA Film Festival in Dallas, Texas, as an official selection of the festival. The film was also an official selection of the 2008 Rhode Island Film Festival and the 2008 Cork Film Festival. It won a Gold Kahuna Award at the 2009 Honolulu International Film Festival.

Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead was released theatrically on February 27, 2009. The New York Times said the film was "compelling" and Film Journal International called it "captivating." The Washington Post described it as a fascinating look at "the vast amount of wiggle room between being for the death penalty and being against it." The film made its television premiere on April 19, 2009, on MSNBC. It will be released on DVD in 2010.

LINKS:

http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/holton1097.htm

CHECK THIS VIDEO: