White Supremacist Executed in Texas Dragging Death

Lawrence Brewer put to death for murder of James Byrd Jr.
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 21, 2011 6:00 PM CDT
White Supremacist Executed in Texas Dragging Death
James Byrd Jr., shown in this 1997 family photo.   (AP Photo/Byrd Family Photo, File)

The Troy Davis case isn't the only big capital punishment story making headlines tonight. Texas authorities executed Lawrence Russell Brewer for his role in the brutal death of James Byrd Jr. in 1998, reports AP. Brewer and two other white men chained Byrd, a 49-year-old black man, to the back of a pickup and dragged him along an asphalt road for nearly three miles. (The driver purposely swerved back and forth along the way, notes KENS5.com.)

"No. I have no final statement," said Brewer before receiving the lethal injection. An accomplice also is on death row, and the third man got life in prison. "One down and one to go," said the retired sheriff from the case in East Texas. "That's kind of cruel but that's reality." (More James Byrd, Jr. stories.)

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