31 May 2019 :
Christopher Lee Price, 46, White, was executed. Price was pronounced dead at 8:31 p.m. Price, now 46, White, was convicted for the December 22, 1991, robbery and killing of Bill Lynn, a minister. Court records state Lynn was wrapping presents for his grandchildren three days before Christmas when his power went out. He walked outside to check the power box when he was attacked. Arrested in Tennessee days later, Price was convicted in 1993. Jurors sentenced him to death by a vote of 10-2, and the trial judge upheld their recommendation. The execution went ahead after the US Supreme Court narrowly denied a request for a stay from the inmate. Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor dissented. It was the second time the nation's highest court has addressed Price's case. In a narrow decision in April, the Supreme Court ruled that Price's execution could go forward hours after Price's death warrant in Alabama had expired. Price had argued the lethal injection protocol would cause him severe pain and asked that the state use lethal gas as an alternative. Two lower courts agreed to put the execution on hold. But after Marshall petitioned the Supreme Court, the majority agreed to lift the stay of execution. The court said that Price had waited too long to make his claim. Death row inmates in Alabama had the choice back in 2018 to elect to "be executed via nitrogen hypoxia" but that Price did not do so, the majority said in the unsigned order. "He then waited until February 2019 to file this action and submitted additional evidence today, a few hours before his scheduled execution time," the majority held. Earlier on Thursday, Price released a statement to his victim through his attorneys. "I am so terribly sorry to the victim and his family for my crime. Neither he nor his family deserved what I did. Nobody deserves that," he said. Price becomes the 3rd person executed this year in Alabama, the 66th since Alabama resumed executions in 1983, the 9th person executed this year in the US and the 1499th in the U.S. since executions resumed in 1977.
