Convicted killer spared lethal injection hour before execution

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday spared the life of a convicted killer shortly before the man’s scheduled execution for masterminding the fatal shootings of his mother and brother.

In sparing the life of Thomas “Bart” Whitaker about an hour before he was scheduled for lethal injection, Abbott accepted the state parole board’s rare clemency recommendation. Whitaker’s father, Kent, also was shot in the 2003 plot at the family’s suburban Houston home but survived and led the effort to save his son from execution. Abbott commuted the sentence to life without parole.

“I’m thankful not for me but for my dad,” Bart Whitaker told prison officials after getting the word in a tiny holding cell a few feet from the death chamber. “Any punishment that I would have or will receive is just, but my dad did nothing wrong. The system worked for him today. And I will do my best to uphold my role in the system.”

The seven-member Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, whose members are appointed by the governor, recommended unanimously Tuesday that Abbott commute the sentence. Abbott, a Republican had the option of accepting the recommendation, rejecting it or doing nothing.

“Mr. Whitaker’s father, who survived the attempt on his life, passionately opposes the execution of his son. Mr. Whitaker’s father insists that he would be victimized again if the state put to death his last remaining immediate family member,” Abbott said in a proclamation issued Thursday evening, adding that Whitaker had also agreed to waive all further rights to parole.

Abbott, also citing the parole board’s recommendation, added: “The totality of these factors warrants a commutation of Mr. Whitaker’s death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.”

Source: nytimes