Michael Richard was executed. He had been convicted in the Aug. 18...

Michael Richard was executed. He had been convicted in the Aug. 18, 1986 rape and murder of 53-year-old Marguerite Lucille Dixon.
The execution was delayed about 2 hours while appeals were in the courts.
Attorneys had asked for a reprieve because of the high court's decision earlier in the day to consider the constitutionality of lethal injection in a Kentucky case. Almost two hours later, the Supreme Court rejected the appeal.
Richard was convicted and sentenced to death in 1987. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals threw out his conviction in 1992 because jurors improperly were not allowed to consider evidence that as a child Richard had been abused. In 1995, a 2nd jury convicted him again and again sentenced him to die.
Richard becomes the 26th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas, the 42nd in the USA and the 1099th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.