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Christopher Scott Emmett
Published: July 25, 2008
JARRATT, Va. (AP) — A killer who unsuccessfully argued that Virginia’s procedures for lethal injection were unconstitutional was executed Thursday after a federal appeals court upheld the primary method of capital punishment in the nation’s second-busiest death chamber.
Christopher Scott Emmett, 36, was pronounced dead at 9:07 p.m. He was convicted of beating a co-worker to death with a brass lamp so he could steal the man’s money to buy crack cocaine.
Gov. Tim Kaine declined to intervene with the sentence being carried out.
``Tell my family and friends I love them, tell the governor he just lost my vote,‘’ Emmett said in the chamber before he died. ``Y’all hurry this along, I’m dying to get out of here.‘’
The lethal injection appeared to go as planned. Emmett was pronounced dead about five minutes after he was first sedated.
Emmett’s appeal was the first to require a federal appeals court to interpret a U.S. Supreme Court decision in April that upheld Kentucky’s method of lethal injection and apply it to another state’s procedures.
Emmett met with immediate family members Thursday morning, Department of Corrections spokesman Larry Traylor said.
Emmett and 43-year-old John Fenton Langley were sharing a room in a Danville motel in April of 2001 as part of an out-of-town roofing crew. On the night Langley was killed, he bought food and grilled for Emmett and other co-workers, then they played cards at their motel. Later as Langley slept, Emmett beat Langley to death with a brass lamp so he could steal his wallet.
The victim’s brother, Gene Langley, and six other family members, including John Langley’s adult daughter and son, watched the execution.
``It’s a bad case for anybody to have to go through. But just some things have to be done,‘’ Langley said afterward. The family planned to visit the victim’s grave.
``We’re going by the cemetery tonight and we’re going to let Johnny know it has been done,‘’ Langley said.
Emmett was the 102nd inmate executed in Virginia since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976. Only Texas has executed more prisoners.
His attorneys claimed that Virginia’s use of lethal injection amounted to cruel and unusual punishment because of the possibility that paralyzing and heart-stopping drugs could be administered before inmates are rendered unconscious by another drug.
Earlier this month, a divided panel of the 4th Circuit found that Virginia’s protocol was similar enough to Kentucky’s that it would not cause inmates excruciating pain. Emmett’s attorneys had asked the full court to review the case, but judges voted 6-4 against the full hearing.
Unlike Kentucky, Virginia does not allow for a second dose of sodium thiopental, which results in a deep, coma-like unconsciousness, even when a second round of the other drugs is required. Virginia also administers the three drugs more quickly than Kentucky corrections officials.
In 10 of the 70 lethal injections performed in Virginia before this year, a second dose of the last two drugs was given because the inmate did not die within a few minutes after the heart-stopping drug was administered, according to court papers.
Judge Roger Gregory, writing in favor of the full court hearing Emmett’s appeal, said that the Supreme Court found the sodium thiopental ``essential to the humanity of Kentucky’s procedure,‘’ and that Virginia did not offer safeguards comparable to those used in Kentucky to ensure that inmates didn’t experience excruciating pain.
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Reader Reactions
I agree with you—there is nothing wrong with the death penalty. The death penalty is less expensive than shltering, feeding, clothing a convicted rapist/murderer/etc. who has no remorse for his crime. I do not want my tax dollars to be spent on a prisoner who kills someone then gets to spend the rest of his life in a prison where he can watch TV, play basketball, sleep in a bed—all the things his victim can’t do. I have never understood, try as I may, people who are opposed to the death penalty. If you kill someone, why in the world should you be allowed the freedom that you took away? The death penalty ensures the murderer will never escape. Fine with me.
I don’t see the purpose for the rigmarole over any death sentence. Emmett beat a co-worker to death in a Danville motel using a lamp in order to steal money to buy drugs. He was found guilty in a court of law and the death sentence was imposed. Supposedly the state took about (7) minutes to carry out this sentence. Is that an equivalent amount of time that Emmett took to kill his co-worker? And Emmett was able to put everything on “hold” because he thought Virginia’s procedures were unconstitutional.
Kaine declined to intervene - he had already put a stay on the execution for a high court ruling. Interferring with the will of the people is more like it and hell would have been raised had he stopped again or commuted the sentence.
I remember just prior to Mark Warner’s exit from office he decided to have DNA evidence tested for Roger Coleman. Never mind that Coleman had already been executed for rape and murder of his sister-in-law. Even served as a pall-bearer at the woman’s funeral. So here comes “out-of-stater”, big spender, liberal Democrat Mark Warner and orders tests be performed on Coleman’s DNA samples. As it turns out the courts had made the correct determination as to Coleman’s guilt. Can you imagine the press coverage Warner would have gotten had the results come out otherwise? Anti-death penalty advocates nationally would still be lauding praise on the man.
Voters of Virginia you’d better wake
up and send these out-of-state liberals packing. Last I heard over 75% of Americans favored the death penalty. Don’t start with the death peanalty not being a deterrent to murder. That point is arguable, but one thing’s for sure, the person convicted and executed will never again have an occasion to hurt another human being - not on this earth anyway.
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