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Texas to Execute White Supremacist for 1998 Dragging Death of James Byrd Jr. Texas Executes White Supremacist for 1998 Dragging Death of James Byrd Jr.
(about 11 hours later)
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On Wednesday evening around 6 p.m., Louvon Harris will be in Huntsville, Tex., about 70 miles north of Houston, for an appointment. She will sit and listen to the words, if any, from the man who tortured and killed her oldest brother over two decades ago in an act of unfathomable racist brutality. Then she will watch the State of Texas put him to death. John William King, 44, convicted two decades ago for killing James Byrd Jr. in an act of unfathomable racist brutality in the small town of Jasper, was put to death by the State of Texas on Wednesday night with a dose of pentobarbital.
“He’s not going through any pain,” Ms. Harris said of the man she is to watch die. “He’s not chained and bound and dragged on a concrete road, swinging back and forth like a sack of potatoes, with an arm coming off and being decapitated or nothing like that.” The execution, carried out at the state’s death chamber in Huntsville, came after the United States Supreme Court turned down Mr. King’s last petition for a stay. He was pronounced dead at 7:08 p.m., said Jeremy Desel, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Mr. King made a final statement issued in writing, Mr. Desel said. “Capital Punishment: Them without the capital get the punishment,” it said.
Early on a Sunday morning in 1998, Mr. King and two other white men attacked Mr. Byrd, a 49-year-old black man who had been offered a ride home in a sinister gesture of neighborliness. The men beat him, spray-painted his face, chained him to the back of a pickup truck and dragged him to his death on an isolated back road. The motive seemed shockingly clear-cut: Mr. King, who had come out of a stint in prison, was a committed white supremacist, his body a billboard of racist tattoos, including one depicting a black man hanged in a noose.
Louvon Harris, a sister of Mr. Byrd’s who planned to attend the execution, said on Tuesday that Mr. King’s death by lethal injection would not compare to the way he had tortured her brother. “He’s not going through any pain,” she said. “He’s not chained and bound and dragged on a concrete road, swinging back and forth like a sack of potatoes, with an arm coming off and being decapitated or nothing like that.”
“When you look at it at that angle,” she continued, “I don’t have sympathy.”“When you look at it at that angle,” she continued, “I don’t have sympathy.”
The man set to be executed is John William King, 44, sentenced to die for his role in the 1998 murder of James Byrd Jr. in the East Texas town of Jasper. Less than a year after the killing, Mr. King became the first white man in modern Texas history to be sentenced to death for killing a black person. This was a troubling milestone given that, according to the Equal Justice Initiative, 344 black people were lynched in the 73 years after Reconstruction, a tally that included only documented lynchings and that stopped in 1950.
Mr. King and two other white men attacked Mr. Byrd, a 49-year-old black man who had been offered a late-night ride home in a perverted gesture of neighborliness. The men beat him, spray-painted his face, chained him to the back of a pickup truck and dragged him to his death on an isolated back road. The motive seemed shockingly clear-cut: Mr. King had come out of a stint in prison a committed white supremacist, his body a billboard of racist tattoos, including one depicting a black man hanged in a noose. There have been several other such death sentences in Texas since, including one handed down to an accomplice in the killing, Lawrence Russell Brewer, who was executed in 2011. But Mr. King’s was the first.
Less than a year after the killing, Mr. King became the first white man in modern Texas history to be sentenced to death for killing a black person. This was a troubling milestone given that, according to the Equal Justice Initiative, 344 black people were lynched in the 73 years after Reconstruction, a tally that includes only documented lynchings and stops in 1950.
There have been several other such death sentences in Texas since, including one handed down to an accomplice in the killing, Lawrence Russell Brewer, who was executed in 2011. But Mr. King was the first.
This has been on Ms. Harris’s mind.This has been on Ms. Harris’s mind.
“When you think about so many others that had to bury a loved one because of hate and didn’t get justice at all,” she said, talking of calls she has received from people with their own stories of racial mistreatment that were never addressed. “It’s heartbreaking.” “When you think about so many others that had to bury a loved one because of hate and didn’t get justice at all,” she said, talking of calls she had received from people with their own stories of racial mistreatment that were never addressed. “It’s heartbreaking.”
The murder of Mr. Byrd led Texas to pass the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act in 2001, strengthening punishments for crimes motivated by bigotry. In 2009, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was passed into federal law, broadening the ability of the federal government to prosecute hate crimes. The legacies of the murder also include the Byrd Foundation, begun by Mr. Byrd’s siblings to “promote racial healing and cultural diversity through education.”The murder of Mr. Byrd led Texas to pass the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act in 2001, strengthening punishments for crimes motivated by bigotry. In 2009, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was passed into federal law, broadening the ability of the federal government to prosecute hate crimes. The legacies of the murder also include the Byrd Foundation, begun by Mr. Byrd’s siblings to “promote racial healing and cultural diversity through education.”
But there is the broad campaign for racial justice, and there is justice in this specific case.But there is the broad campaign for racial justice, and there is justice in this specific case.
The execution on Wednesday will be the last discrete punitive act by the state in response to Mr. Byrd’s murder, beyond the day to day incarceration of Shawn Allen Berry, the third man involved in the killing, who is not up for parole until 2038. The execution on Wednesday was most likely the last discrete punitive act by the state in response to Mr. Byrd’s murder, beyond the day-to-day incarceration of Shawn Allen Berry, the third man involved in the killing, who is not up for parole until 2038.
For some in Jasper, the execution is a resolution long sought, most likely the last time journalists will pour into town for interviews. The past 21 years have been painful for the town. For some in Jasper, the execution was a resolution long sought, most likely the last time journalists would pour into town for interviews. The past 21 years have been painful for the town.
[Read more here about how Jasper has struggled with the legacy of the killing.][Read more here about how Jasper has struggled with the legacy of the killing.]
“The majority of the people have been doing everything they can to forget it already,” said Billy Rowles, who was sheriff of Jasper County when the killing happened. He is now the sheriff of neighboring Newton County, though he remains close to members of the Byrd family. It is clearly harder for someone like Mr. Rowles to move on than it is for some others. He believes the execution will be good for him and others close to the investigation, particularly the family members. Like Ms. Harris, he is planning on going to Huntsville, where the state’s execution chamber is. But, he said, he wasn’t going inside. “The white people would like to just forget about it,” said the Rev. Ronald Foshage, pastor of St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Jasper, who has spent the years consoling the Byrd family as well as Mr. King’s anguished father, who died in 2011. Father Foshage understood the impulse: It has been hard for everyone, scaring away business from the town and staining the reputation of a community that has been genuinely trying to heal. But he did not share it.
“I’ve seen people die before,” he said. “I’ve had that opportunity and I’m not going to do that. But I am going to go over and make sure it gets done. And even drink an adult beverage.” “It will never go away,” he said.
But closure, a word as easy to say as it is difficult to realize, is not something Ms. Harris is expecting. She did not find it when she attended the execution of Mr. Brewer, who, after a last meal so plentiful that it put an end to last meal requests in Texas, made no statement of remorse, even telling a journalist beforehand that he would “do it all over again.” Closure, a word as easy to say as it is difficult to realize, is not something Ms. Harris is expecting. She did not find it when she attended the execution of Mr. Brewer, who, after a last meal so plentiful that it put an end to last meal requests in Texas, made no statement of remorse, even telling a journalist beforehand that he would “do it all over again.”
The execution “doesn’t change the fact that hate still exists in society,” Ms. Harris said.The execution “doesn’t change the fact that hate still exists in society,” Ms. Harris said.
It will not give the last 21 years back to Mr. Byrd, she said. It will not take away the 21 years Mr. King has been “still alive and breathing,” corresponding with fans and pushing appeals in court. It would not give the last 21 years back to Mr. Byrd, she said. It would not take away the 21 years Mr. King was “still alive and breathing,” corresponding with fans and pushing appeals in court.
“It’s not completely healing,” she said. “It’s just finding justice.”“It’s not completely healing,” she said. “It’s just finding justice.”
And so she and two of her sisters are going. Another sister of Mr. Byrd’s, Betty Boatner, who still lives in Jasper and takes care of their aging father, had no plans to attend the execution, as she had not attended the last one. For one thing, she had a sore throat, she said, and needed to rest.
Another sister, Betty Boatner, who still lives in Jasper and takes care of their aging father, will not be joining them. She was scheduled to speak at a vigil in town on Wednesday, as she had in 2011 when Mr. Brewer was executed. But she has a sore throat, she said. She’ll probably just stay in that night and get some rest. “I really haven’t sat and thought about it, how it would make me feel,” she said on Tuesday morning. She had forgiven her brother’s killers a long time ago, she said. It still hurts, of course. And she did not object to the execution on Wednesday. It is what the jury decided, and that is the law. But what the justice system decides and what she seeks, these are two separate things.
“I really haven’t sat and thought about it, how it would make me feel,” she said on Tuesday morning. She had forgiven her brother’s killers a long time ago, she said. It still hurts, of course. And she does not object to the execution on Wednesday. It is what the jury decided, and that is the law. But what the justice system decides and what she seeks, these are two separate things.
“I’ve been moving on by the grace of God, and whatever the state says that he deserves, the state has a right to make that decision,” she said. “It is what it is.”“I’ve been moving on by the grace of God, and whatever the state says that he deserves, the state has a right to make that decision,” she said. “It is what it is.”