Texas man who killed 3 executed

Associated Press

HUNTSVILLE, Texas

A Texas inmate was executed Tuesday for the killings of his 15-year-old girlfriend, her mother and her grandfather nearly 13 years ago in Houston.

Derrick Dewayne Charles, 32, became the seventh prisoner put to death this year in the nation’s most active capital-punishment state. He was pronounced dead at 6:36 p.m. CDT.

The lethal injection was carried out after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected arguments from Charles’ attorneys that he was mentally incompetent for execution and that they needed time and court-approved money for experts and investigators to pursue that claim. Another appeal argued Charles’ trial court also acted improperly by refusing to appoint psychiatric experts and investigators.

Charles’ lead attorney, Paul Mansur, had said Texas ran “an unacceptably high risk of killing a person whose mental illness is so severe he cannot comprehend why he is being executed.”

The Supreme Court has ruled condemned inmates must be aware they are about to be executed and have a rational understanding of why they’re being put to death.

State lawyers opposing Charles’ appeals said his attorneys previously made similar arguments about his competency that the courts had rejected and that the constitutional challenge was improperly filed because it circumvented a Texas appeals court.

Charles pleaded guilty to capital murder charges in 2003 for the slayings of Myiesha Bennett, her mother, Brenda Bennett, 44, and her grandfather, Obie Bennett, 77. Their bodies were discovered at their Houston home in July 2002.

Charles, then 19, was arrested the next day at a motel where police also found Brenda Bennett’s car.