What I really want to know is . . . was there a protest?
First Posted: 9/23/11
Derrick Mason Executed: Alabama Kills Man Who Shot, Killed Store Clerk
By HARRY R. WEBER, Associated Press
ATMORE, Ala. -- A man described by a police informant as trying to make a name for himself was executed Thursday evening for the 1994 shooting death of an Alabama store clerk during a robbery.
Derrick O. Mason, 37, was administered an injection and pronounced dead minutes later at 6:49 p.m. local time at Alabama's Holman Prison. It was the third execution this week in the United States.
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The victim's family issued a statement afterward saying it hopes the execution stands as a deterrent for those who consider committing heinous crimes.
"We sincerely wish he had made a different decision ... then neither of our families would have been here tonight," said the family of victim Angela Cagle.
Mason was convicted of killing the 25-year-old woman in Huntsville on March 27, 1994, shooting her twice in the face at close range after ordering Cagle to take her clothes off during an early morning robbery. The victim was found dead in the back room of the convenience store where she worked.
An unidentified man later told police that Mason had committed the crime. The informant described the gun used, told police that Mason was "out of control" and "trying to make a name for himself," and then led authorities to Mason's car. Inside, police found a gun later determined to be the murder weapon. After he was arrested, Mason confessed, court records show.
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Over the years, Mason argued that his Constitutional rights were violated because he was initially arrested on an unrelated misdemeanor assault warrant and therefore the gun found in his car should not have been admitted into evidence in the murder case. He also argued that his confession was involuntary because he was subjected to improper questioning, intoxicated and hungry during the interrogation, psychologically coerced, and misled by law enforcement officers.
http://www.aol.com/2011/09/23/derrick-mason-executed_n_977638.html
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