Carl Buntion | Texas executed its oldest inmate on death row for the murder of a police officer more than 30 years ago | United States | WORLD

Texas executed Carl Buntion, 78, the oldest inmate on death row on Thursday, convicted of killing a police officer more than 30 years ago at a routine traffic stop.

The lawyers of Carl Buntion filed a final appeal before the Supreme Court of USA, but was rejected. ANDThe man was executed by lethal injection. and his death was certified at 6:39 p.m. local time (23:39 GMT), according to the Texas Department of Justice.

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another state of USATennessee, had also planned for Thursday the execution of another elderly inmate, Oscar Franklin Smith72, by lethal injection for murdering his ex-wife and their two teenage children in 1989.

However, the governor of that state, Bill Lee, tweeted that Smith had agreed to a temporary suspension due to “an oversight in the preparation of the lethal injection.”

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Buntion was the oldest death row inmate in Texas; the conservative southern state of USA who has executed more prisoners.

His lawyers argued that executing him now, after so many years of his crime, would constitute a “cruel and unusual punishment”something prohibited by the Constitution of USA.

According to advocates of Buntionthe detainee posed no risk to anyone and suffered from multiple illnesses including arthritis, vertigo, hepatitis, sciatic nerve pain, and cirrhosis.

“Mr Buntion is a frail old man”their attorneys said in a petition to the California board of pardons and parole. Texas “And he will not be a threat to anyone in prison if his sentence is reduced to a lesser sentence.”

Buntion has been in solitary confinement for the past 20 years, restricted to his cell for 23 hours a day.

The inmate shot and killed a police officer from Houstonthe official James Irbyin June 1990, during a routine traffic control.

At that time the inmate already had a long record and was on parole after a conviction for sexual assault of a minor.

In his last words at the Huntsville State Penitentiary, Buntion He said he had “regrets” and asked Irby’s family to know. He added that he felt “ready to go.”

Buntion received his first sentence in 1991which was annulled in 2009 by the highest State Court, but three years later another jury reinstated the death penalty against him.

Last year the US Supreme Court refused to issue a stay of execution for Buntion.

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