[caption id="attachment_14635" align="alignright" width="144" caption="Robert W. Jackson III became the first Delaware death row inmate executed since 2005 Friday morning (photo courtesy: Delaware Dept of Correction)"]
Robert W. Jackson III has become the first inmate to be executed in Delaware since 2005, following a flurry of 11th hour court appeals.
According to witnesses in the execution chamber at the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center near Smyrna, Jackson went to his death maintaining his innocence in the 1992 ax murder of 47-year-old Elizabeth Girardi during a botched burglary at her Hockessin home.
“This isn’t justice,” Jackson said as part of his final statement, according to witnesses.
Outside in the pouring rain, some demonstrators held candles and signs protesting capital punishment. In a separate area nearby, one local resident who had been following the case was glad to see the execution finally take place.
In the weeks leading up to Friday’s execution, it appeared court battles would further delay it. Jackson was sentenced to death in 1993. His legal team challenged the state’s use of pentobarbital, the first of a three-drug lethal injection cocktail. Pentobarbital was substituted for another drug that was discontinued by its manufacturer.
In previous proceedings and as late as this week in U.S. District Court, Jackson’s lawyers contended that the drug had unpredictable effects with the risk of causing pain and suffering. Additionally, Jackson sought to reopen the case to the state and U.S. Supreme Court.
The appeal process for a stay was exhausted just hours before the execution. Governor Jack Markell turned down Jackson’s final request for a reprieve.
“The State of Delaware this morning carried out the penalty for Robert W. Jackson III for the brutal murder of Elizabeth Girardi,” Gov. Markelll said in a statement. “Mr. Jackson’s death sentence was recommended by a jury, imposed by a judge, and reviewed by state and federal appellate courts at all levels. It is my prayer that his victim rests in peace and her family finds some closure. May God have mercy on Mr. Jackson.”
Reaction to Delaware's execution of Robert W. Jackson III
Esteban Parra of The News Journal, one of the media witnesses, describes the last words of Robert Jackson III before Jackson was executed by lethal injection.
[audio:http://www.wdde.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/parra.mp3|titles=Estban Parra]
Kristin Froehlich of Wilmington, whose brother was murdered in Connecticut in 1995, explains why she protested against the death penalty at the execution of Robert Jackson III.
[audio:http://www.wdde.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/froehlich.mp3|titles=Kristin Froehlich]
Rose Wilson of Townsend showed up at the Vaughn Correctional Center in Smyrna to show support for the execution of Robert Jackson III.
[audio:http://www.wdde.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/wilson.mp3|titles=Rose Wilson]
Jackson spent the past few days reading, writing letters, visiting with family and his attorneys, talking with prison staff, sleeping and eating according to John Painter, spokesman for the Delaware Department of Correction. Jackson’s last meal included steak, baked potato, potato skins, corn and soda.
Witnesses to the execution said Jackson was strapped to a gurney as the midnight hour approached and he was offered the opportunity to state any last words. Esteban Parra, a reporter with The News Journal, said Jackson asked whether the Girardi family was present. “If you’re in there, I never faulted you for your anger. I would have been mad myself,” Jackson reportedly said, adding “I didn’t take your mother from you.”
Jackson went on to say that “Tony’s (apparently referring to his codefendant) laughing his a-- off now because you’re about to watch an innocent man die.”
Jackson’s breathing became heavy. “It became to me noticeable on his face that he could tell that he was in the last moments of his life,” said Rosemary Connors of NBC10 News in Philadelphia, another media witness to the execution.
After the curtains were closed, Parra said the warden asked twice “inmate Jackson, can you hear me?”
There was no response.
Jackson was pronounced dead at 12:12 a.m. Friday.
The DOC released an official list of witnesses that included a variety of law enforcement officers, a state lawmaker, and representatives of the Delaware Victim’s Compensation Assistance Program and the Delaware Attorney General’s Office. The department would not say whether any members of the Jackson family or the Girardi family were among the witnesses.
Before the execution was carried out, demonstrators were brought by bus to a protest area just outside the prison. Some carried signs reading “abolish the death penalty” or “don’t kill in my name.”
One of them was Kristin Froehlich of Wilmington, whose brother was murdered in Connecticut in 1995. She disputed the viewpoint often expressed by prosecutors and politicians that the death penalty is justice and offers closure to the families of victims.
“I think it perpetuates violence in an already violent society,” Froehlich said.
Lamont Gaines, a former inmate at the prison now living in Quinton, New Jersey, said he was making his first return visit in order to show his opposition to the death penalty. “Just taking his life is not going to correct anything,” Graves said.
Not far from the group of about 20 death penalty opponents stood Rose Wilson of Townsend, who said her aunt and uncle were murdered 34 years ago in a case that was never solved.
Wilson said she has been following the Jackson case and was pleased to learn the sentence would finally be carried out.
“He deserves what he’s going to get,” Wilson said.