NationStates Jolt Archive

RALEIGH, N.C. - A double murderer who said he didn't want to be known as a number became the 1,000th person executed in the United States since capital punishment resumed 28 years ago.

Kenneth Lee Boyd, who brazenly gunned down his estranged wife and father-in-law 17 years earlier, died at 2:15 a.m. Friday after receiving a lethal injection.

After watching Boyd die, Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page said the victims should be remembered. "Tonight, justice has been served for Mr. Kenneth Boyd," Page said.

Boyd's death rallied death penalty opponents, and about 150 protesters gathered outside the prison.

"Maybe Kenneth Boyd won't have died in vain, in a way, because I believe the more people think about the death penalty and are exposed to it, the more they don't like it," said Stephen Dear, executive director of People of Faith Against the Death Penalty.

"Any attention to the death penalty is good because it's a filthy, rotten system," he said.

Boyd, 57, did not deny killing Julie Curry Boyd, 36, and her father, 57-year-old Thomas Dillard Curry. But he said he thought he should be sentenced to life in prison, and he didn't like the milestone his death would mark.

"I'd hate to be remembered as that," Boyd told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "I don't like the idea of being picked as a number."

The Supreme Court in 1976 ruled that capital punishment could resume after a 10-year moratorium. The first execution took place the following year, when Gary Gilmore went before a firing squad in Utah.

During the 1988 slayings, Boyd's son Christopher was pinned under his mother's body as Boyd unloaded a .357-caliber Magnum into her. The boy pushed his way under a bed to escape the barrage. Another son grabbed the pistol while Boyd tried to reload.

The evidence, said prosecutor Belinda Foster, clearly supported a death sentence.

"He went out and reloaded and came back and called 911 and said 'I've shot my wife and her father, come on and get me.' And then we heard more gunshots. It was on the 911 tape," Foster said.

In the execution chamber, Boyd smiled at daughter-in-law Kathy Smith — wife of a son from Boyd's first marriage — and a minister from his home county. He asked Smith to take care of his son and two grandchildren and she mouthed through the thick glass panes separating execution and witness rooms that her husband was waiting outside.

In his final words, Boyd said: "God bless everybody in here."

Boyd's attorney Thomas Maher, said the "execution of Kenneth Boyd has not made this a better or safer world. If this 1,000th execution is a milestone, it's a milestone we should all be ashamed of.

In Boyd's pleas for clemency, his attorneys said he served in Vietnam where he operated a bulldozer and was shot at by snipers daily, which contributed to his crimes.

Both Gov. Mike Easley and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene.

Execution No. 1,001 was scheduled for Friday night at 6 p.m., when South Carolina planned to put Shawn Humphries to death for the 1994 murder of a store clerk.

Hmmm, it is a milestone for sure but for what? Success/Failure of the Death Penalty? Though in this case I would hardly use him as a cause against DP, he admitted to the crime on tape so there is no "evidence could prove him innocent later!" claim.

May Mr. Boyd rest in peace.

I think they should Pay-Per-View these executions.

I think they should Pay-Per-View these executions.

And that's why you're not paid to make these decisions.

Hmmm, it is a milestone for sure but for what? Success/Failure of the Death Penalty? Though in this case I would hardly use him as a cause against DP, he admitted to the crime on tape so there is no "evidence could prove him innocent later!" claim.
Well, seeing as to how he committed the crime in the first place, I guess the Death Penalty is not a deterrant.

Other than that, just one more in a sad story. Eventually your country might look back at this and ask why (unless Nationalism and so on change the country even further and make the founding fathers rotate in their graves even faster).

And that's why you're not paid to make these decisions.
Are you?

Are you?

Nope. Never said I was.

But your idea was twisted and I had to say something.

Nope. Never said I was.

But your idea was twisted and I had to say something.

It may be twisted, but it would be profitable.

I think they should Pay-Per-View these executions.You'd be disapointed... Lethal injection is rather anticlimatic. The first drug administered renders the victim unconcious and after that close inspection is required just to see his breathing cease. Hardly the stuff you'd pay thirty bucks to see.


Perhaps you could strangle a kitten for entertainment instead...

It may be twisted, but it would be profitable.

Same goes for slavery. Fancy we look into that again?

Same goes for slavery. Fancy we look into that again?

Sure, why not?

Hmmm, it is a milestone for sure but for what? Success/Failure of the Death Penalty? Though in this case I would hardly use him as a cause against DP, he admitted to the crime on tape so there is no "evidence could prove him innocent later!" claim.

Im going to need to break out a cigar

So, not even 36 people a year are executed, and yet people vehemently and self-righteously talk about how barbaric, uncivilized, disgusting, amoral and criminal the death penalty is.

Yet there are 12,658 murders in one year in the USA, and these same people don't get nearly as outraged. They're concerned about the 1 innocent man who accidentally gets executed. I guess the 12,657 innocent people aren't nearly as something to get upset about.

1000 executions? It's not enough.

And you're right, lethal injection is not a deterrant. That almost sounds like the most pleasant way to die (aside from over-orgasming during a cocaine orgy with four hot supermodels at once). That's why these things should be displayed on TV. And should be more violent.

So, not even 36 people a year are executed, and yet people vehemently and self-righteously talk about how barbaric, uncivilized, disgusting, amoral and criminal the death penalty is.

Yet there are 12,658 murders in one year in the USA, and these same people don't get nearly as outraged. They're concerned about the 1 innocent man who accidentally gets executed. I guess the 12,657 innocent people aren't nearly as something to get upset about.

1000 executions? It's not enough.

And you're right, lethal injection is not a deterrant. That almost sounds like the most pleasant way to die (aside from over-orgasming during a cocaine orgy with four hot supermodels at once). That's why these things should be displayed on TV. And should be more violent.

But it sounds to me that you're suggesting that the government stoops to the level of a criminal. I would never elect a murderer to public office.

-snip-
You're right! :eek:
This Western, Democratic, Liberal Nation is not nearly as violent and horrible as a psychopath who killed three people and ate them!

Quickly, get out your knives and forks people!

You're right! :eek:
This Western, Democratic, Liberal Nation is not nearly as violent and horrible as a psychopath who killed three people and ate them!

Quickly, get out your knives and forks people!
What, are we going to eat them as the new execution method?

But it sounds to me that you're suggesting that the government stoops to the level of a criminal. I would never elect a murderer to public office.

Does *invading* Germany sound like stooping to the level of Hitler? I mean, he did after all, *invade* a country. Same thing, right? No. One is a just reaction, the other is an injust impulse. This is why an execution is not murder, and it is also why imprisoning someone is not kidnapping.

But it sounds to me that you're suggesting that the government stoops to the level of a criminal. I would never elect a murderer to public office.
Well that's just a perception. Like I perceive murder as bad you may perceive it to be good. (Yeah it's the best example ever, eh?)

You're right! :eek:
This Western, Democratic, Liberal Nation is not nearly as violent and horrible as a psychopath who killed three people and ate them!

Quickly, get out your knives and forks people!
All we have are safety scissors and sporks, will those work?

In my mind the death penalty should be functional, not used as deterrance or for retribution. Habitual criminals of any kind should be put to death, not just heinous axe-murderers. It will save space and, if the bureaucratic nonsense currently attached to executions is dropped, money. If it serves as deterrance and makes the victims or their relations feel better, bonus. Life imprisonment is a waste of everyone's time.

What, are we going to eat them as the new execution method?

That's terrible. Meat is murder! No, we should mush them up into fertilizer and grow a nice crop of soybeans for an all-natural, all-healthy, completely moral dietary lifestyle alternative!

I think the death penalty makes perfect sense, especially with forensics continually advancing. That dramatically reduces the chances of screwing over someone innocent, and, well some people deserve it. Some people see it as the 'easy way out.' I don know how you feel, but I would MUCH rather spend the rest of my life in prison than die. Death scares most people, and I would definitely consider it an incentive not to do stupid things like kill people.

Maybe thats just me.

The USA should have a running competition with China.

In my mind the death penalty should be functional, not used as deterrance or for retribution. Habitual criminals of any kind should be put to death, not just heinous axe-murderers. It will save space and, if the bureaucratic nonsense currently attached to executions is dropped, money. If it serves as deterrance and makes the victims or their relations feel better, bonus. Life imprisonment is a waste of everyone's time.

If say, 80 years ago, the U.S. government did to drug trafficers what singapore does now, the world would be a far better place. It is too late unfortunately.

1000th Person Executed in the USA


Execution #1,000.

Friday

2:15 AM.

Let me check....

Yes! I won the pool!

The USA should have a running competition with China.

That would be the most one sided competition ever.

That would be the most one sided competition ever.

Nah, the USA could do it if you guys put your minds to it, i'm sure.

USA all the way!

I'm sorry guys who are convicted of killing their wife and their father are in a poor position to decide how they are remembered.

I had kind of a funny thought, when are all the criminals going to demonstrate against crime because 1000 of them have died for their crimes by execution?
If life in prison really meant life instead of 20 years give or take and then parole and then they come live in my neighborhood and then I gotta figure out who the dangerous people are because they have rights too, rights which really amount to more than my rights, well I would change my mind about the death penalty.
I admit, it is not a deterant, word, even when it was pretty brutal, it was not a deterant not on a societal scale. Still one guy isn't going to be killing another wife, or another father-in-law.
When they say 'estranged' there's a reason people become 'estranged' you know. Perhaps he killed her for not comeing back to be his sex slave cook punching bag etc and he killed her father for not just handing her over. If the guy killed his wife in that way over that issue in some Arab country, well there would be those of you all on about the oppression of women in these countries and all in FAVOR of executing the bastard. He's a bastard no matter where he lived no matter what his race or religion not to figure out a better way to solve his problems.
I don't like the death penalty but I as well don't like how many of these kinds of guys are walking around loose just an argument away from killing someone.
The system failed that sorry bastard the moment that he was not punished in some memorable way, one that would make him stop it, for beating his wife the first time. Say by three days in jail and a serious program to straighten him out aftewards.

Nah, the USA could do it if you guys put your minds to it, i'm sure.

USA all the way!
Woooo!!!

*does execution dance*

I'm sorry guys who are convicted of killing their wife and their father are in a poor position to decide how they are remembered.
If the guy killed his wife in that way over that issue in some Arab country, well there would be those of you all on about the oppression of women in these countries and all in FAVOR of executing the bastard.

No, I oppose the death penalty in all circumstances.

Except in a competitive way. *waves US flag*

The 9th circiut is helping to make sure we don't get to 2,000.

Does *invading* Germany sound like stooping to the level of Hitler? I mean, he did after all, *invade* a country. Same thing, right? No. One is a just reaction, the other is an injust impulse. This is why an execution is not murder, and it is also why imprisoning someone is not kidnapping.

I think you are confusing the issue. The United States did not send people to ovens (of course we did imprison Japanese, which in my opinion was also wrong). But responding to wartime attacks is a different matter than capital punishment.