Atlanta, GA 5/7/2008 1:47:15 AM
News / Law

William Earl Lynd, Jose Medellin, Earl Wesley Berry Sentenced to Execution

William Earl Lynd, Jose Medellin, and Earl Wesley Berry, three high-profile inmates on death row across the nation, have all been sentenced this week to execution.

Lynd, a convicted killer who has received national attention, was denied clemency by Georgia's Parole and Pardon Board on Tuesday.

Lynd is set to die by lethal injection Tuesday night at 7pm.

Lynd, convicted of a 1988 murder, will become the first person executed in the United States in more than seven months.

Lynd was convicted of the murder of his girlfriend, Virginia "Ginger" Moore, in Berrien County two decades ago. Prosecutors told jurors that Lynd shot her twice in the head, then later shot her a third time after he heard her continuing to move in the trunk of the car where he had put her.

About a dozen states have announced they would resume capital punishment in the next several months since the Supreme Court in April voted to uphold Kentucky's lethal injection protocols.

Texas officials announced Monday they plan to execute Mexican-born Medellin in August for the gang rape and murder of two teenage girls in Houston 15 years ago.

The Supreme Court said the state could proceed in the execution of Medellin, participated in the gang rape and murder of Jennifer Ertman, 14, and Elizabeth Pena, 16, in Harris County, Texas on June 24, 1993.

In Mississippi, the state's supreme court on Monday scheduled the execution of Berry for May 21. The attorney general had hoped to hold an execution Monday evening.

Berry, 49, was convicted in the 1987 kidnapping and fatal beating of a Houston, Mississippi, woman.

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