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Wednesday, 17 September 2008
USA's longest-serving death row inmate was executed Tuesday in the slaying of his wife 34 years ago.
Jack Alderman was pronounced dead at 7:25 p.m. at the state prison in Jackson.
Mr Alderman was 57 and had been on death row for 34 years.
Alderman's death by lethal injection took 14 minutes
The 20th man executed in Georgia by lethal injection took 14 minutes to
die Tuesday night.
Witness described Jack Aldermans manner as calm, almost serene, his eyes
closed the entire time. For a few minutes before he was declared dead,
they said he smiled.
"There was no jerking," said Jan Skutch, a media witness from The Savannah
Morning News. "He was calm. It was almost antiseptic."
Adlerman, pronounced dead at 7:25 p.m. Tuesday, has been on death row
almost 35 years -- longer than any of the 109 death row inmates in
Georgia. He was convicted of the 1974 Chatham County murder of wife
Barbara Alderman for $10,000 in insurance money.
When that conviction was overturned by a federal appeals court, he was
convicted in a 2nd trial in 1984.
An accomplice in the murder, John Arthur Brown, beat Barbara Alderman with
a crescent wrench. Then he and Alderman choked her and put her underwater
in a bathtub to be sure she was dead.
Brown was paroled in 1987 and died a free man in New York in 2000.
Alderman's attorney, Michael Seiml, said Tuesday night after he had
exhausted his last appeals to the Georgia parole board for clemency and to
the U.S. Supreme Court -- that Alderman, 57, was a model prisoner who
deserved to have his death sentence reduced to life.
"Brown didn't have a lick of character and the same board that refused
clemency for Alderman this morning offered Brown parole," Seiml said. He
[Alderman] has been the model prison for 34 years. If that's not enough to
get clemency, it's hard to imagine what is."
But David Lock, an assistant district attorney in Chatham County, said
Alderman instigated the crime.
"He was more culpable, without him, the crime would not have taken place,"
Lock said.
No members of Alderman's family witnessed the execution, said Georgia
Department of Corrections spokesman Paul Czachowski. 2 members of Barbara
Alderman's family were at the prison but did not witness the execution.
Alderman made a recorded statement earlier in the day "thanking everyone
who made his life better, considering the circumstances," said Czachowski,
paraphrasing the condemned mans comment.
Alderman declined a final comment. A chaplain prayed for him, saying at
one point "Jack, may Christ free you from excruciating pain." Alderman
was administered the lethal injection with needles in each arm while he
was strapped down.
Alderman did not make a special last meal request. Instead, at 4 p.m.
Tuesday he was given the regular prison meal.
"He barely touched it," said Czachowski.
Alderman becomes the 3rd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in
Georgia and the 43rd overall since the state resumed capital punishment in
1983.
Alderman becomes the 21st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in
the USA and the 1120th overall since the nation resumed executions on
January 17, 1977.
(sources: Atlanta Journal-Constitution & Rick Halperin)