An inmate convicted of rape and murder in the southern United States is to be executed on Wednesday. Rarely, he did everything to ensure that the sentence was applied quickly
The state of Mississippi is due to proceed this Wednesday, November 17, with the execution of a death row inmate. 50-year-old David Cox is due to receive a lethal injection in Parchman Penitentiary, an overcrowded prison in the southern United States.
In 2009, his wife, who had a daughter from a first marriage, reported him to the police after learning that he was raping her. He had spent a few months in prison before being released on bail. He then bought a weapon for revenge. After breaking into his ex-wife’s house, he shot her and left her in agony for hours by sexually assaulting her 12-year-old daughter in front of her.
Contrary to his religion
David Cox was sentenced to death in 2012 after pleading guilty to murder. His lawyers have filed several appeals to try to overturn the sentence, to no avail. Rather rarely, however, the criminal wrote to the judges asking them to fire his lawyers and set a date for his execution “as soon as possible”.
In a letter dated August 2018, he explains that he wants his “body to be executed for crimes committed with premeditation, anger and joy”, and adds to be Amish. “Having lawyers is therefore contrary to my religion”, he assures in this handwritten letter. After several medical examinations, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled that he was qualified to make this decision and set his execution for Wednesday.
Shortage of lethal substance
Usually, each such sentence is the subject of an intense legal battle. Convicts spend an average of nineteen years on death row. Barring any surprise, David Cox will ultimately be the tenth death row inmate executed in the United States in 2021.
It will especially be the first to be since 2012 in Mississippi. The State having difficulty in obtaining the lethal substances necessary for the executions. Pharmaceutical companies, which do not want to be associated with the death penalty, refuse to sell them.
–
