A Texas man convicted of killing a police informant has been executed after the US supreme court rejected arguments that he was too mentally impaired to receive the death penalty.
Marvin Wilson, 54, was pronounced dead 14 minutes after his lethal injection began at the state prison in Huntsville on Tuesday night. Wilson’s attorneys had argued that he should have been exempt from capital punishment because of his low IQ.
Before the lethal drugs were administered Wilson smiled and raised his head from the death-chamber gurney, nodding to his three sisters and son as they watched through a window a few metres away. He told them several times that he loved them and asked that they give his mother “a big hug”.
“Y’all do understand that I came here a sinner and leaving a saint,” he said. “Take me home Jesus, take me home Lord, take me home Lord!”
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