For the third time in two years, Death Row inmate Wendell Flowers faces his day of
execution.Unless the courts
intervene, Flowers, 46, will die by lethal injection on Dec. 17. Barry McNeill, of the
N.C. Attorney General’s Office, said this morning he sees little chance of another
delay.
Flowers has had trouble making up
his mind about his death.
In 1998, Flowers fired his lawyers
and asked to be executed. State officials scheduled his death for April 1998.
At one point, the state Supreme
Court postponed his execution six hours, and after talking with his mother, Flowers
changed his mind and renewed his appeals.
A second time last year, he asked
to die, but after the state scheduled his execution for Aug. 21, he changed his mind again
and told authorities he wanted continue with the appeals process.
McNeill said Flowers’ federal
court appeals have been “dismissed with prejudice” and it will be “nearly
impossible for his case to go back there.” In addition, “given his (Flowers)
track record with the state,” his case will more than likely not go back to the state
level either.
In May 1998, a Rowan County judge
ruled Flowers competent. And McNeill said the courts have determined Flowers is
“competently and voluntarily” making the decision to die.
Flowers originally went to prison
after beating elderly Wilkesboro store owner Thomas Greer to death in 1981. Flowers also
kidnapped and assaulted Greer’s wife, and he was sent to prison for life.
While serving his life sentence at
Piedmont Correctional Institute in Rowan, he was accused of stabbing fellow inmate Rufus
Watson to death. On Oct. 6, 1994, a jury convicted Flowers of stabbing Watson 31 times in
the head, chest and back with a homemade metal shank. Watson and Flowers were fighting
over another man with whom Flowers had a homosexual relationship. The jury sentenced
Flowers to death.
Three other inmates, Steven
Leazer, Michael Moore and John Fuller, also were indicted in the inmate’s murder.
Leazer and Moore were convicted and are serving life sentences. Fuller was tried twice in
Cabarrus County; in both cases, the jury couldn’t reach a verdict, and prosecutors
did not try him a third time.
Flowers may request clemency from
Gov. Jim Hunt, but McNeill said “nationally there are few granted” and Hunt has
never granted a request for clemency.
Flowers will be the fifth person
executed in North Carolina this year. On Nov. 19, David Junior Brown was executed for two
murders he committed 19 years ago.
Flowers is currently being held in
Central Prison’s Death Row, where 200 others, including four women, await execution. |
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