Texas death row inmate Daniel Lee Lopez, who for years has affirmed his guilt for killing a Corpus Christi police lieutenant and petitioned courts to expedite his execution, was executed Wednesday night after the U.S. Supreme Court denied an appeal by his lawyer.
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Daniel Lopez received a lethal injection at the Texas death chamber in Huntsville and was pronounced dead at 6.31pm local time on Wednesday.
The SUV Lopez was driving struck and killed the officer.
Lopez, 27, became the 10th inmate put to death this year in Texas, which carries out capital punishment more than any other state.
Attorneys representing Lopez refused to accept his intentions, questioning federal court findings that Lopez was mentally competent to volunteer for execution. Assistant Police Chief Mark Gutierrez told KRIS TV in Corpus Christie that he would be among a group of officers witnessing Lopez’s execution.
Lopez’s lawyer David Dow said at a Supreme Court hearing that Lopez had “obvious and severe mental illness” and “well-documented history of irrational behaviour and suicidal tendencies”. “It was always about Daniel Lopez, and it’s still about Daniel Lopez”, Skurka said Tuesday.
Even after the chase ended, Lopez continued to use the SUV as a battering ram, aiming it at officers and vehicles before he was shot in the arm, neck and upper chest and then subdued, authorities said.
“I’ve accepted my fate”, Lopez said before the execution. So I’m ready, right, “Lopez told the AP in 2011”.
“He’s a bad, bad guy”.
Records showed Lopez was on probation at the time after pleading guilty to indecency with a child in Galveston County and was a registered sex offender.
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Officers found cocaine and a small scale in his SUV. He had also been arrested in the past for assault.
