[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----VIRGINIA

[Rick Halperin]

May 27



VIRGINIA----execution

Virginia executes killer


A man whose lawyers claimed he was mentally disabled was executed Tuesday
night for killing a convenience store owner in the 1st execution in
Virginia in nearly 2 years.

Kevin Green, 31, was pronounced dead at 10:05 at Greensville Correctional
Center in Jarratt. He died by injection for the August 1998 slaying of
Patricia Vaughan, who operated the store with her husband.

Green shot the couple and fled with about $9,000.

Green's execution was scheduled to begin at 9 p.m., but was delayed for
about an hour when his attorneys attempted to get a federal judge to step
in at the last minute. Once the judge declined, the execution proceeded.

Green shot Vaughan and her husband, Lawrence, while robbing their
convenience store in rural Dolphin, more than 50 miles south of Richmond.
Patricia Vaughan, 53, died at the scene. Lawrence Vaughan was shot but
survived.

Police say Green confessed, telling them he and his nephew took a bus to
northern Virginia and blew all but $170 of the $9,000 they stole on
prostitutes, marijuana and clothes.

His nephew, 16 at the time, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 23 years
in prison.

Kevin Green went to trial and was found guilty of robbery and capital
murder and sentenced to death in 2000. A year later, the Virginia Supreme
Court ordered a new trial because of juror problems. Green was convicted
again in 2001 and again sentenced to death.

The Vaughan family has waited 10 years to see the sentence carried out.

"I feel like we're the puppets and they're being the puppeteers," said
Marsha Brown, one of the Vaughans' two daughters. She plans to watch
Green's execution with her father, sister, husband, stepmother and 2 local
officials.

"It's just a fine line between being hopeful and helpless. I really regret
that another life has to be involved - that an execution has to happen -
but I just think it needs to be carried out," she said.

Green becomes the 99th condemned inmate to be put to death in Virginia
since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982.

Green becomes the 3rd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the
USA and the 1102nd overall since the nation resumed executions on January
17, 1777. The death penalty had been re-legalized in the country on July
2, 1976.

(sources: Associated Press. Virginian-Pilot, & Rick Halperin)