Indiana executes man who wanted to donate liver
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Indiana on Wednesday executed a convicted murderer who had sought a reprieve so he could donate part of his liver to an ailing sister.
Gregory Johnson, 40, was pronounced dead at 12:28 a.m. CDT (0528 GMT) after an injection of lethal chemicals, officials at the Indiana State Prison said.
A signed, hand-written statement by Johnson released after his execution accused authorities of failing to recognize that he had changed while in prison and was capable of a humane act such as donating an organ.
His final words were, “Everyone has been professional,” prison spokeswoman Java Ahmed said.
Gov. Mitch Daniels said he agreed with the Indiana Parole Board, which voted unanimously last week to deny Johnson’s clemency petition. He said there were no grounds to second-guess years of court rulings.
Johnson had requested clemency or a 90-day stay so he could donate part of his liver, recover from the surgery and then be executed. He was sentenced to death for killing an 82-year-old woman during a home break-in in 1985.
The governor said he would have been amenable to a brief postponement if Johnson’s transplant proposal offered “a clear, demonstrated medical advantage to his sister.”
NOT A GOOD MATCH
He released a letter from two experts at Indiana University Hospital’s transplant center, which said Johnson’s liver was not a good match for his sister, 48-year-old Deborah Otis. The letter said Johnson has Hepatitis B and large body weight, making his liver less desirable, and his sister in any case needs a full rather than partial transplant, along with a kidney from the same donor, to survive.
Her organ is afflicted with nonalcoholic cirrhosis, though she is not currently on a transplant waiting list because of a temporary medical complication.
The letter Daniels released said Otis would likely get a liver and kidney within 20 days once she went on a waiting list.
In his written statement, Johnson said the parole board had improperly concluded “that I was not sincere and there had been no change from the Gregory Scott Johnson of 20 years ago.”
“If you refuse to acknowledge any change or any attempts to change, then you are shredding portions of the Indiana Constitution, article one, section 19, ‘the penal code shall be based on principles of reformation, and not vindictive justice.’
“Thanks to all of you for your prayers, I’ll see you on the other side,” he wrote.
Transplant requests from death row prisoners in the United States have occurred before, though they are unusual, according to Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.
In a 1995 Delaware case a condemned man donated a kidney to his mother, and returned to death row. In Alabama, a prisoner awaiting execution won permission for an organ donation, but he was not a correct match, Dieter said.
In a Florida case, an inmate was denied a request to donate a kidney to his brother. The condemned man was later exonerated and released from jail, but his brother died waiting for a transplant, Dieter said.
It was the 970th execution since the United States reinstated capital punishment in 1976, and the 26th this year.
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