Robert Wayne Harris, Texas executed its eighth inmate this year on Thursday, a former Dallas-area car wash employee convicted of killing two co-workers a week after he was fired in 2000. Robert Wayne Harris, 40, was executed in Huntsville at 6:43 p.m. with a lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital.
His last statement: “I want to let y’all know that I love you, Billy, I love you, English, Hart and Eloise. Dwight, take care of Dwight. I’m going home, I’m going home. I’ll be all right, don’t worry, I love y’all. God Bless and the Texas Rangers, Texas Rangers.”
Earlier Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied requests for a stay of execution. Harris had confessed to killing five people at the Mi-T-Fine car wash in Irving, Texas, on March 20, 2000, and was charged in connection with all five, but tried for just two.
Harris’ attorney, Lydia Brandt, had argued in a petition submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court this month that Harris’ execution should be stayed because, at the time of his trial, prosecutors improperly removed all of the potential jurors who were black, like Harris.
Brandt also petitioned the court for the stay based on Harris’ low IQ, citing a 2002 Supreme Court decision barring execution of the mentally impaired. Tests showed Harris had an IQ of 68; normal is considered 100.
The Texas attorney general’s office opposed the appeals for a stay, noting that judges had rejected tests purporting to demonstrate Harris’ mental impairment and that race did not taint his jury selection. A spokesman for the office declined to comment about the case Thursday.
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