Killer executed despite mental status

HUNTSVILLE, Texas, May 1 (UPI) -- Texas executed a condemned killer despite questions over whether he was mentally retarded, officials said.

A group of lawmakers asked Gov. Rick Perry to delay the Huntsville execution Thursday of Derrick Lamone Johnson because of alleged new information showing him to be mentally disabled. But Perry refused, the Austin American-Statesman said.

Johnson, 28, a 10th-grade dropout, was convicted in the 1999 slaying of LaTausha Curry, who was kidnapped, beaten, suffocated and robbed of $10.

The U.S. Supreme Court banned the execution of anyone with mental disabilities in 2002.

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