The state of Texas on Thursday executed its oldest inmate on death row, 78-year-old Carl Buntion, for the murder of a policeman in a traffic stop more than three decades ago.
Lawyers representing the 78-year-old inmate had filed a final appeal in the US Supreme Court seeking a stay on his death sentence, but the appeal was rejected.
Subsequently, at 6.39pm local time on Thursday, Buntion was administered a fatal dose of pentobarbital at a state penitentiary in Huntsville. He died 13 minutes later.
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“I do have remorse for what I did,” were Buntion’s last words to the family of the policeman he shot.
Born in 1944, Buntion had seen his own father murder a man and commit domestic violence, an event which he later said caused him to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
His troubled upbringing led him to a life of crime, and his first conviction came in 1961, for theft. Over the years, Buntion accumulated a series of strikes against his name, including convictions for burglary, damage to property, and possession of narcotic drugs.
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On June 27, 1990, Buntion was a passenger on a vehicle that was pulled over for a routine traffic stop by Houston Police Department officer James Irby. As Irby spoke to the driver, Buntion exited the vehicle and shot him in the head, before firing two rounds into the back of Irby’s dead body.
Buntion then fled the scene, shooting at nearby people. He then proceeded to attempt a carjacking and fired at the driver in his failed attempt to do so. Buntion also shot at another officer and held a person at gunpoint before he was finally arrested.
In 1991, Buntion was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned it in 2009. Subsequently, in 2012, Buntion was again sentenced to death, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in October 2021.