Alabama set to carry out 1st execution in more than 2 years

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Alabama set to carry out 1st execution in more than 2 years

Kim Chandler, Associated Press

Updated 3:42 am, Thursday, January 21, 2016

ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — A man convicted of the 1992 rape and beating death of a woman is scheduled to receive a lethal injection Thursday in what would be Alabama's first execution in more than two years.

Christopher Eugene Brooks, 43, is set to die at 6 p.m. CST at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, authorities said.

He was convicted of the 1992 capital murder of 23-year-old Jo Deann Campbell, a woman he first met when they worked as camp counselors in upstate New York. A judge sentenced him to die after a jury recommended a death sentence by an 11-1 vote.

Campbell was seen speaking to Brooks at a restaurant where she worked on Dec. 30, 1992, and she later told a friend that someone was spending the night in her living room, according to witnesses. The next day, Homewood police found Campbell's partially clothed body under the bed of her Homewood apartment. Prosecutors said she had been bludgeoned to death with an 8-pound dumbbell and sexually assaulted.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Alabama-set-to-carry-out-1st-execution-in-more-6773800.php

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. Alabama execution tonight would be first in 2 years: Christopher Eugene Brooks killed Homewood woman

Alabama execution tonight would be first in 2 years: Christopher Eugene Brooks killed Homewood woman in 1992

By Kent Faulk | [e-mail]
on January 21, 2016 at 5:30 AM, updated January 21, 2016 at 8:44 AM

Death row inmate Christopher Eugene Brooks, who is set to be executed by lethal injection this evening for the 1992 slaying of a Homewood woman, is still awaiting word this morning on whether the U.S. Supreme Court or Alabama's governor will spare him.

Brooks is set to be executed at 6 p.m. in the execution chamber at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore. He would be the 57th death row inmate executed in Alabama since executions resumed in 1983 after an unofficial more than decade-long nationwide moratorium ended. ... AL.com will provide real-time updates throughout the day.

If Brooks' execution goes forward, it would be the first since Andrew Lackey on July 25, 2013 and the first since Alabama changed its three-drug lethal injection cocktail. Inmates contend in pending lawsuits the drug combination is unconstitutional and will cause inmates to suffer.

"Alabama intends to use an execution protocol on Brooks that has never been used in Alabama and that is the subject of two pending federal court cases," Brooks' attorneys argue in its request for a stay to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. "Brooks should not be the subject of Alabama's experiment to see if it can carry out an execution using this protocol while the very validity of the protocol is at issue in ongoing federal court proceedings.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Alabama to carry out first death penalty since 2013 on rapist: murderer (Updated)

Alabama to carry out first death penalty since 2013 on rapist: murderer
Reuters
By David Beasley
5 hours ago

(Reuters) - The state of Alabama on Thursday executed a 44-year-old man convicted of raping and murdering a woman in 1992, a prison official said, the first execution in that state since 2013.

Christopher Brooks was pronounced dead from lethal injection at 6:38 p.m. CST at the state's death chamber in Atmore, prison spokesman Bob Horton said.

. . .

There were no complications with the execution, the spokesman said. This was the first time Alabama used a new three-drug protocol that includes midazolam, a sedative that has drawn national scrutiny after several botched executions.

Brooks gave a brief statement before he died, thanking family members, Horton said. "I hope this brings closure to everyone," Brooks said, according to Horton.

More:
http://news.yahoo.com/alabama-executes-convicted-rapist-murderer-prison-official-014728309.html