The execution of Edward Buzbee, who robbed and murdered a 77-year-old woman, had been on hold for nearly a week. A last-minute Supreme Court ruling on Thursday allowed the move forward.
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The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling clears the way for Texas to carry out its 600th execution on Thursday, May 14th.
Edward Buzbee’s execution had been on hold for nearly a week after the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay order citing his intellectual disability. The state appealed the verdict, and Buzbee’s fate was unknown until the Supreme Court’s decision late Thursday, May 14.
Three hours later, Texas executed him. Buzbee was pronounced dead at 8:11 p.m. (Central time).
Liberal Justices Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Sonia Sotomayor dissented. Mr. Jackson wrote in his dissent that Texas experts determined Mr. Busby was too mentally retarded to be executed.
“In fatal incidents, we rarely intervene to save lives,” Jackson wrote in his dissent. “I don’t understand why the court would rush to kill a case, especially under the circumstances of this case.”
Busby was convicted in 2004 of the robbery and murder of Laura Lee Crane, a 77-year-old former Texas Christian University professor who was attacked at a Fort Worth grocery store.
In his final words, Buzbee asked the room full of witnesses, including Crane’s family, not to hate him but to forgive him in their hearts.
“Ms. Crane was a lovely woman. I never intended for anything bad to happen to her,” Crane said as she lay strapped to a stretcher in the death chamber, according to the Texas Department of Corrections. “I’m so sorry… I hurt your family, I hurt my family, and I wish I could take it all back. I sincerely want it back.”
Texas has executed 599 inmates since 1976, hundreds more than any other state in the nation before Buzbee’s execution, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which tracks U.S. executions.
“Mr. Busby will have 600 people.”th The agency spoke in a post about what this milestone means for the state and nation, saying Buzbee’s case is an example of how the death penalty is used against people of color and mentally disabled inmates in the United States.
Here’s what else you need to know about this:
What was Edward Buzbee convicted of?
On January 30, 2004, 77-year-old Laura Lee Crane was at a grocery store near her home in Fort Worth when her nightmare began. Edward Buzbee and his girlfriend kidnapped a retired Texas Christian University professor, forced her into the trunk of his car and wrapped duct tape around her head, according to court records.
She died of suffocation.
“The trunk became her coffin,” prosecutor Greg Miller said during Busby’s trial, according to archived news reports. “The car itself became her hearse.”
Buzbee has always maintained that he did not intend to kill Crane and thought he had put duct tape around her head so she could still breathe. He said the plan was to release her once she was far enough away from Oklahoma.
“All I want you to know is that it was never my intention for that woman to die,” he tearfully told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in a prison interview in 2004. “I don’t know what happened. I was up for two days smoking crack.”
Crane’s body was wrapped in a white sheet and left on the side of a highway near Davis, Oklahoma. Buzbee led authorities to the scene.
Courts went back and forth on Edward Buzbee’s execution
On Friday, May 8, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order suspending Buzbee’s execution, less than a week ahead of schedule.
The court cited an upcoming case in Alabama that could change the way inmates are determined to have intellectual disabilities.
“In matters of life and death, the state needs to ensure that appropriate constitutional rules apply to whether and how to determine intellectual disability before executing a defendant for a capital crime, especially if this is a rule that the Supreme Court will soon clarify,” said Fifth Circuit Judge Stephen Higginson.
Supreme Court justices are considering how to weigh multiple IQ scores when determining whether a death row inmate’s intellectual disability is so severe that the death penalty would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
The Supreme Court could have allowed Mr. Buzbee to remain in custody when deciding the issue, but the majority ruled in favor of proceeding.
What will happen to U.S. executions this year?
Buzbee’s execution is the 12th in the United States this year and the fourth in Texas.
This will be the second execution carried out alone on Thursday. Earlier in the day, Oklahoma executed Raymond Eugene Johnson for the brutal 2007 murders of his ex-girlfriend Brooke Whitaker, 24, and her 7-month-old daughter Kaia.
Executions are scheduled for next week in Arizona, Tennessee, and Florida.
Contributor: Maureen Grope
Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter covering capital punishment, cold case investigations and breaking news for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat
