Dead man walking tonight......
SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday turned back a plea for mercy for a man convicted of murdering two women in 1981 over a drug deal, clearing the way for California's first execution in nearly three years.
Donald Beardslee, 61, is scheduled to die by injection Wednesday at one minute past midnight.
"The state and federal courts have affirmed his conviction and death sentence, and nothing in his petition or the record of his case convinces me that he did not understand the gravity of his actions or that these heinous murders were wrong," Schwarzenegger said in his written denial.
Beardslee's lawyers claimed he suffered from brain maladies when he killed Stacey Benjamin, 19, and Patty Geddling, 23, to avenge a soured $185 drug deal.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/01/18/ca....ap/index.html