Mentally ill killer executed in Texas

Mentally ill killer executed in Texas
REUTERS

HUNTSVILLE, TEXAS, JAN 22: Larry Robison, a mentally ill man who murdered five people in a 1982 killing spree, was put to death by lethal injection last night despite pleas for clemency from Pope John Paul and the European Union.

Robison, 42, became the fourth person executed this month in Texas, which leads the nation in capital punishment. He died without making a final statement. Texas Governor George W Bush, campaigning in Iowa for the Republican Presidential nomination, took no action to stop the execution. In a letter to Bush last August, the Pope sought a life sentence for Robison.

``Killing people to show that killing is wrong is a striking contradiction, even more so when mental illness seems to be involved as in this case,'' the Pope wrote.