Alabama Executes Man for '93 Murder

37th Execution of 2010

According to the Associated Press, Alabama executed Holly Wood a 50-year-old death row inmate for shooting his former girlfriend to death.

Prison officials say Wood died by lethal injection yesterday at 6:21 p.m. He had no last words. Two of his sisters witnessing the execution screamed, cried and prayed loudly.

In 1993, Wood broke into the Troy home of his former girlfriend and shot her in the head with a shotgun while she was sleeping.

His attorneys claimed he had an IQ of 70 or less. They argued that Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304(2002), the U.S. Supreme Court decision that bars the execution of the mentally retarded should have prevented his execution.

Wood also argued that he should not be subject to the death penalty because his trial lawyers wrongly failed to tell the jury about his mental limitations. Earlier this year the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his claim that his trial attorney was ineffective, Wood v. Allen, 588 U.S. ___ (2010). The High Court also rejected his last minute appeal to stay his execution.

He was the fourth inmate executed in Alabama this year. The 48th execution in Alabama, and the 1,224th nationwide, since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.