Texas Executes Man for Killing his Son

The 8th Execution of 2011

Texas executed Timothy Wayne Adams by lethal injection on February 22, 2011 for the death of his son, Timothy Jr. Adams shot his son twice at close range after a standoff at his his apartment, according to the Houston Chronicle.

The execution took place about 35 minutes after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a final appeal from Adams. Adams' final appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, filed the morning of the execution, mirrored an earlier appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which also ended in failure. In that appeal, David Dow, a Texas Defender Service lawyer and University of Houston law professor, argued that a 2007 court ruling in a Beaumont woman's baby-killing case should be applied retroactively to Adams.

The Appeals Court in the Beaumont case found that the mother no longer presented a continuing danger because her violence had been directed solely at her child and, in prison; she likely never again would become a mother.

Adams declined to make a final statement, shaking his head no when asked if he had any final words. Before the lethal drugs were administered, he mouthed some words to his parents and brother and sister, who witnessed the execution. Adams kept his gaze on his family members and never looked at Timothy Jr.'s mother and her family, who watched the execution from a different room than his relatives, according to the Chronicle.

He let out a series of gasps after the lethal injection took effect. Ten minutes later, at 6:31 p.m., he was pronounced dead. Adams sister Stacey Adams — watching from a witness room just feet away — collapsed in convulsive sobs. "God is still in control," her father, retired Houston firefighter Columbus Adams, told her as he supported her in his arms until a wheelchair could be rolled into position. Adams' mother, Wilma Adams, muttered, "He's going to sleep. He's going to sleep. He's going to a better place. He's going to get to see Jesus,” reported the Chronicle.

Emma Adams, the toddler's mother, quietly sobbed during the execution. She and her family declined to speak with reporters afterward.

To read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7441559.html