From:  skisics@yahoo.com

 The Bloody Bush Brothers must be proud...killing an innocent man and Jesus.

 Florida Executes Courthouse Killer
 By Michael Peltier

 TALLAHASSEE (Reuters) - The killer of a bailiff in a
 1984 Florida courthouse shooting spree was executed by
 lethal injection on Wednesday despite his lawyers' claims
 that he was mentally unfit to understand his punishment.

 Thomas Provenzano, 51, was pronounced dead at 7 p.m.
 EDT eight minutes after officials at the Florida State Prison
 administered lethal chemicals through an intravenous drip,
 state Department of Corrections spokesman C.J. Drake said.

 The execution was delayed for 30 minutes while the
 Florida Supreme Court considered a last-minute request
 from Provenzano's attorneys that a psychiatrist be
 brought in to examine him. The request was denied and
 Republican Gov. Jeb Bush notified the prison warden
 that no stay had been granted.

 Witnesses said Provenzano's last words were to thank his lawyers.

 Provenzano had been scheduled to die on Tuesday evening for the
 1984 murder of an Orange County bailiff, but received a stay from the
 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, which halted the
 execution 11 minutes before it was to have commenced.

 Capital punishment has come under increased debate in
 the United States. The fairness of the death penalty
 also has become an issue in the U.S. presidential
 election in which the Florida governor's brother,
 Texas Gov. George W. Bush (news - web sites), is the
 presumptive Republican nominee.

 London-based human rights group Amnesty International called the
 Provenzano execution ``an act of state-sponsored vengeance against a man
 who has been diagnosed with serious mental disorders since before
 this terrible crime.''

 Provenzano's attorneys had argued that he is too mentally ill to be executed.
 Psychiatrists testified that Provenzano believed at times that he was to be
 executed because he is Jesus Christ.
 
 
 

 From: skisics surus