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TEXAS MAN EXECUTED FOR BURGLARY-SLAYING
October 21, 2008: Texas executed its 12th inmate so far this year, when Joseph Ray Ries, 29, was given a lethal injection as punishment for the 1999 murder of a 64-year-old man, the Texas Justice Department said in a statement.
In his final words, he asked for forgiveness for his crime and sang praises to the Lord, the Department said.
It was the twelfth execution carried out since the start of the year by Texas, which leads all US states in executions - 417 - since the US Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
Some 375 other inmates await execution on so called death row in Texas prisons, nine of them within the next 30 days.
Ries and his accomplice Christopher White were convicted of killing Robert Ratliff with three shots to the head, neck and back while he sleeping, after stealing his car.
Ries and Ratliff had been acquainted and the younger man had stayed over at the older man's house.
The prosecutor at his trial said Ries, despite his youth, had an uncontrollable temper and disregard for the law. (Sources: AFP, 21/10/2008)
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