California Executes Condemned Killer Donald Beardslee

(San Quentin, California) Donald Beardslee's appeals before the U.S. Supreme Court were rejected and a plea for clemency from Gov. Schwarzenegger was denied. Consequently, shortly after midnight, at 0029 PST, the three-time convicted murderer was executed by lethal injection.

Beardslee was condemned to die after convictions for the shotgun murder of Patty Geddling, 23, and the throat-slashing murder of Stacey Benjamin, 19, in 1981. He has been on death row for twenty years.

The execution is only the eleventh since reinstatement of the death penalty by California in 1992. Well over 600 prisoners are condemned to death in California, waiting their turn.

Over 400 death penalty protesters stood outside the prison and chanted, "They say Death Row! We say hell no!" Lefty activist Mike Farrell, president of Death Penalty Focus, unsuccessfully tried to intervene with the lawyers. About all he was able to do was relay a message from Beardslee to the protesters expressing appreciation for their presence.

Companion post at Backcountry Conservative.