Bobby Wayne Woods, 44, was executed Thursday, December 3, 2009 in Huntsville, Texas. He was the 24th person executed in Texas in 2009, the 208th executed since Rick Perry became governor and the 447th executed in Texas since 1982. There have been, so far, 49 executions in the U.S. in 2009; Texas conducted 49 percent of those 2009 executions. There are no more executions scheduled in Texas in 2009. Five executions are already scheduled in Texas for 2010, including two in January.
A 44-year-old Texas man has been executed for raping and murdering an 11-year-old girl, despite his attorneys’ pleas that he was too mentally impaired to qualify for capital punishment.
Bobby Wayne Woods received lethal injection Thursday evening moments after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to halt his execution. His lawyers had argued Woods was mentally impaired, making him ineligible for execution, and that previous appeals to spare Woods’ life were unsuccessful because of shoddy work by his lawyer at the time.
Woods was convicted of killing Sarah Patterson. She and her 9-year-old brother were snatched from their home near Fort Worth in April 1997. Her brother was beaten and left for dead but survived to testify against Woods.
