USA - John Balentine (TX)

USA - Texas. John Balentine, 54, Black, was executed on February 8

February 8, 2023:

February 8, 2023 - John Balentine, 54, Black, was executed on February 8.
Balentine received a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville
"Yes ma’am, I want to thank y’all. I love y’all for supporting me. I want to apologize for the wrong I did to y’all. Forgive me, I’m ready ma’am," Balentine said in a final statement before being given a lethal injection.
He was pronounced dead at 6:36 p.m.
Balentine, a Black man, had been sentenced to death on June 11 1999 in Potter County in the January 21, 1998 shooting deaths of 3 male teenagers, all white: Edward Mark Caylor, 17, Kai Brooke Geyer, 15, and Steven Watson, 15, at a home in Amarillo. Prosecutors said all three were shot once in the head as they slept.
Balentine had previously shared the house with his ex-girlfriend, according to court records. One of the victims was his ex-girlfriend’s brother, who had disapproved of the couple’s interracial relationship and previously threatened Balentine in a dispute that grew racist.
Balentine confessed to murdering the teenagers, but one of his trial attorneys said that he turned down a plea deal which included a life sentence because he was scared of how he'd be treated in prison.
Balentine also was among a group of condemned inmates involved in an ongoing legal battle to stop the state prison system from extending the expiration dates of its execution drugs.
The practice, which the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has maintained for years due to fewer pharmacies producing execution drugs, violates the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, the inmates claim.
Balentine becomes the 3rd inmate to be put death this year in Texas, the 581st overall since Texas resumed capital punishment in 1982, the 6th in the U.S. this year, and the 1,564th overall since the nation resumed executions in 1977.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/texas-executes-man-killed-three-teens-sleep
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/08/texas-execution-john-balentine/