Man Halted Appeal, Is Executed

The New York Times

April 22, 1990

A convicted killer who demanded that his lawyers halt efforts to stop his execution was put to death early today for the slaying of a Houston taxi driver.

The convict, Jerome Butler, who had spent about half his life behind bars, was given a lethal injection at 12:15 A.M.

''I just want to say I wish everybody a good life and things like that; everything is O.K.,'' he said. He nodded to the prison warden and a chaplain, coughed several times and stopped breathing. At 12:26 A.M. he was pronounced dead.

Mr. Butler, whose age was recorded as 54 although he said he was several years older, was sentenced to death for the 1986 shooting death and robbery of 67-year-old Nathan Oakley of Houston.

#122d Execution Since '76

Mr. Butler was the first person to be executed willingly in Texas since Robert Streetman ordered his lawyers to make no further efforts on his behalf. He was put to death Jan. 7, 1988. Mr. Butler was the 34th inmate to be executed since Texas resumed use of the death penalty in 1982. The total is the highest of any state. Nationally, he was the 122d person executed since a 1976 Supreme Court ruling allowed states to resume capital punishment.

''I just want to get it over with,'' Mr. Butler said last month when his execution date was set. ''There won't be no appeals.''

Vic Pecorino, a lawyer for Mr. Butler, said his client could have been spared if he had had a change of heart, but added, ''Without cooperation from him, what are you going to appeal?''

Prosecutors said Mr. Butler may have killed Mr. Oakley because the driver recognized him as the man who killed a friend in 1973. Sentenced to 30 years for that murder, he was freed in 1984.

On Friday, Mr. Oakley's widow, Robbie, expressed satisfaction at the impending execution. ''This is what I've been waiting for, for this moment, to know this man cannot take away another wife's husband and children's father,'' she said. ''It's been a difficult three and a half years. I wish I could be there to see it.''

Mr. Butler spent 27 years behind bars, beginning with a term in New York in 1959 for robbery and attempted sexual assault.