Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 6, 1994 TAG: 9401060008
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Seattle Times
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
And it ended in the electric chair in Jarratt, Va., where David Mark Pruett died Dec. 16 for raping and fatally stabbing his best friend's wife.
Along the way, 1993 became a record year for executions in the United States. The 38 men put to death in 10 states were the most in any year since capital punishment resumed in 1977 after being halted for five years by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Although backers and opponents still argue the death penalty's merits and morality, both sides say the pace of executions is likely to continue increasing, based on the number of cases reaching the end of the appeal process.
"How much are people going to take? I would think at some point the public would start to have a distaste for it," said Pam Rutter, program coordinator for the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
But Glenn Lammi of The Washington (D.C.) Legal Foundation, which supports the death penalty, said the number of executions indicates that the public, who serve as jurors, finds the penalty appropriate.
In the year since Dodd's execution:
The number of people on the nation's death rows rose by more than 100, from 2,676 to 2,785.
Texas, which has 375 men and four women on death row, continued to lead the nation in executions, holding 17 last year.
Of the 38 men executed in the United States, seven, including Dodd, went to their deaths after either dropping their appeals or deciding not to appeal their sentences.
Two weeks after Dodd's death, Charles Stamper, 39, went to Virginia's electric chair for killing three co-workers. Stamper was the first of five men executed in Virginia last year and the first of 14 African Americans executed in the United States in 1993. Also executed were 19 whites, four Latinos and one Native American, according to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
by CNB