Ronald Wayne Frye (see 8/22/01) was put to death by...

Ronald Wayne Frye (see 8/22/01) was put to death by injection at the Central Prison after the governor denied his request for clemency. Frye had also appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which denied his request for a stay earlier this week. His attorney was drinking heavily every day of the trial. Probably because of the drinking, the attorney failed to present any evidence of the severe abuse that Frye suffered as a child. In a recent op-ed, Gene R. Nicol, Dean at the University of North Carolina School of Law, described the attorney's behavior:"Every night after the trial recessed, instead of preparing for the next day, the lawyer went home and drank a bottle of rum until he fell asleep or passed out. He drank a good deal more on the weekends. And these admissions likely understate the case. When the lawyer was involved in a car wreck during the same time period, his blood-alcohol level was a near-lethal 0.436 percent -- even though it was 11 in the morning and he hadn't had anything to drink in hours.