On May 4, California also executed Manuel Babbitt,...

On May 4, California also executed Manuel Babbitt, a former Marine who had been given one of the country's highest medals for bravery. He was awarded a Purple Heart in 1998 for wounds suffered in a 1968 battle and received the medal in a ceremony at San Quentin. Babbitt, condemned for murdering an elderly Sacramento woman during a 1980 robbery, was suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome after his service in Vietnam. A juror who sent him to death row said he would have voted for a life prison sentence had he known in the trial about long-term psychological effects of the war on the man.