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May 1, 2009 7:37 am US/Central
Dallas Man Executed For 1999 Rape, Slaying
HUNTSVILLE (AP) ―
Convicted killer Derrick Lamone Johnson quietly accepted his punishment as he was put to death for the rape-slaying of a Dallas woman abducted a decade ago after she stopped to make a call at a pay phone.
"It's my situation," Johnson said, telling his mother to not cry as she sobbed while walking in the Texas death chamber to watch his lethal injection Thursday evening. "Hold tight. It's going to shine on the golden child."
Nine minutes later, he was pronounced dead, making him the 14th Texas prisoner executed this year in the nation's most active death penalty state.
Johnson, 28, never acknowledged relatives of his victim, LaTausha Curry, including the woman's father and two sisters. They watched from an adjacent room and declined to speak with reporters following the execution.
Curry, 25, was robbed of less than $10, was driven away in her car, raped, beaten with a two-by-four and suffocated with her own blouse during what authorities determined was part of a two-week crime spree in January 1999 involving Johnson and a companion. During the binge, numerous women were robbed or raped from Dallas to south of Waco, some 100 miles away.
Lawyers for Johnson tried to block the punishment in the courts, contending he was mentally disabled and ineligible for execution under U.S. Supreme Court guidelines. His appeal reached the Supreme Court on Thursday and was turned down about an hour before he was taken to the Huntsville death chamber.
The American Civil Liberties Union also had urged Gov. Rick Perry, who could issue a one-time 30-day reprieve, to stop the execution, contending Johnson never had a full and fair hearing on his mental impairment claim. Perry did not step in.
Greg Davis, a former Dallas County assistant district attorney who prosecuted Johnson for capital murder, said he remembered the grief of Curry's mother, who died not long after Johnson's November 1999 trial.
"I remember her mother coming in and saying how she lost more than a daughter," Davis said. "She said, 'I lost my best friend.' It did break the mother's heart. I think this case ultimately killed her as well."
Several women who survived attacks from Johnson and a partner, Marcus Maxwell, then 15, testified at Johnson's trial.
Maxwell, who was certified for trial as an adult, took a plea deal and is serving 40 years in prison.
Johnson said he was wrongly convicted and complained about his court-appointed defense attorneys on a Web site devoted to death row inmates.
"The system is corrupt and there is no 'Justice' if you are of the low class," Johnson wrote. "It is sad that if you are a poor man in the system there is no justice for you."
In a confession to police, Johnson said he and Maxwell raped and killed Curry, who worked as a security guard and had a 4-year-old child. He told officers where to find her body in an overgrown part of a park in Dallas' Oak Cliff area. His fingerprints were in her car and DNA tied him to her rape.
After they killed Curry, records show the pair robbed a woman at a gas station. Later, driving Curry's car, they rammed into another woman's car in a carjacking attempt. That woman called police but Johnson and Maxwell ran off.
Johnson was arrested four days later at his mother's apartment, Police found cocaine inside a hollowed-out pager he was carrying.
Records showed Johnson was arrested two years earlier for robbery, pleaded guilty and received 10 years probation that included a stint in a boot camp. He was released from the camp after 65 days for good behavior.
At least five other Texas inmates have with execution dates extending into the summer. Scheduled to die next, on May 19, is Michael Lynn Riley, 50, condemned for the slaying of Winona Harris, who was stabbed more than 23 years ago during the robbery of a convenience store in Quitman, about 80 miles east of Dallas.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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