Gerald Mitchell, condemned for a murder he committed...

Gerald Mitchell, condemned for a murder he committed at 17, was pronounced dead at 6:25 p.m. Mitchell was condemned for killing on June 4, 1985 Charles Anthony Marino and Kenneth Fleming. Mitchell, 33, was the 19th U.S. prisoner to be executed since 1976 for a murder committed when the killer was younger than 18. He was the 10th in Texas, the nation's most active death penalty state, where he was among 31 death row inmates who were 17 at the time of their crime. It's the 2nd capital punishment case involving a teen-ager in recent months in Texas. Mitchell's case failed to reach the level of attention given in August to fellow inmate Napoleon Beazley, also condemned for a murder at age 17. Beazley was spared by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals hours before he was to have been put to death for killing the father of a federal appeals court judge. The same state court, however, refused to halt Mitchell's punishment.