Twice-convicted murderer Joseph Earl Bates was executed...

Twice-convicted murderer Joseph Earl Bates was executed today. Bates, 35, died by lethal injection at 2:14 a.m. at Central Prison in Raleigh for the Aug. 11, 1990 shooting death of Charles Edwin Jenkins. Bates confessed to the crime. A Yadkin County jury 1st convicted Bates of 1st-degree murder and sentenced him to death in March 1991. On appeal, Bates won a new trial. His second trial, in 1994, ended with another conviction of 1st-degree murder, and another sentence of death. Bates becomes the 3rd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in North Carolina and the 56th in the USA.