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Florida Executes Convicted Killer
October 16, 2013
Convicted murderer William Frederick Happ was put to death Tuesday evening at Florida State Prison near Starke.
Happ, 51, was convicted in the May 24, 1986, murder of Angela Crowley in Crystal River. Crowley, 21, was abducted while making a call from a pay phone in a parking lot and was taken by Happ to the Cross Florida Barge Canal, where she was beaten, sexually battered and strangled to death with her own clothes. By the time he was arrested for the murder, Happ had begun serving a prison sentence in California for an unrelated armed robbery and kidnapping.
The execution marked the first in which the Department of Corrections used midazolam hydrochloride instead of pentobarbital sodium as part of the triple-drug cocktail used in executions. The drug, the first of three injections, renders the inmate unconscious.
States, including Florida, have struggled to maintain stockpiles of pentobarbital sodium because Denmark-based manufacturer Lundbeck refuses to sell it directly to corrections agencies for use in executions and has ordered its distributors to also stop supplying the drug for lethal-injection purposes.
Comments
14 Responses to “Florida Executes Convicted Killer”
REGARDING:
“@David, I understand that the opponents of painful execution might win again and prevent the execution altogether, but that’s why we are in the place we are at now where murders are on death row for 20+ years. No, we should go back to making it VERY painful and something to be AVOIDED and FEARED! When we make execution painless and we take 20+ years to get to it, they don’t fear it. ”
Is the low pain approach or the low chance of timely punishment which encourages killers?
If all killers were sure they would be caught and punished, most would not kill even if the punishment were a mere thousand dollar fine.
Even more would not kill if the certain punishment were five years in prison surrounded by bad people.
Even more would not kill if they knew they would languish in prison for 20 years.
Would they be better stopped by the fear of a minute’s worth of pain or the CERTAINTY of painless death? or even the CERTAINTY of five years in prison? The biggest thing is the hope of not getting caught in the first place, the hope that a jury will turn them loose rather than risk killing the wrong person, the hope that law enforcement people and prosecutors will err so greatly that any conviction will be thrown out.
I’m not overly concerned by whether or not killers suffer but they are more likely to be executed if the constitutional question of “cruel and unusual punishment” does not enter the picture. Put them down humanely.
David for effective justice
The cost to house, feed, guard, and appeals process cost the tax payers $1,620,000 over 27 years.
A 30/30 round $1.75
A 20 ft new rope $27
We have our priorities in the wrong place.
In china the prisoners family is billed for the Bullet used for execution. There is a 90 day appeal in china. I don’t like buying Chinese goods but I like their judicial system.
WOW…27 years of our tax dollars hard at work…PATHETIC! If you take a moment and look at death row inmates you will be shocked at how long most of them have been seating there. SMH!
@Mike J ~ You hit the nail on the head regarding the appeals process. That is why I mentioned a judicial reform. As far as quoting Bundy, that came while he was on Death Row with no hope of getting out. He already had been convicted of three murders in Florida and other states were looking to have a shot at him if he ever got out of Florida alive. It seems to me that he, of all people, would be an authority on whether the thought of the death penalty deters one from committing murders. It never slowed him down!
People like this guy shout be hanged immediately after sentencing, this 20+ years on death row is a waste of taxpayers hard earned money. I know there have been some innocents on death row, but the cases where there is no doubt or a confession, those cases should be executed out back of the court room right after sentencing.
@Dennis, “it definitely costs the taxpayers more to put one to death than to keep him in prison for life. Maybe what we need is an overhaul in the judicial system.”
-The only reason costs may be higher for execution, if true, is the cost of lawyers and 20+ years of appeals. Yes, overhaul the judicial system and reduce appeals to 10 years or less. Also, I don’t think quoting a murderer is going to help. Why should we believe him since he belonged to a group of people who want to be able to murder?
@David, I understand that the opponents of painful execution might win again and prevent the execution altogether, but that’s why we are in the place we are at now where murders are on death row for 20+ years. No, we should go back to making it VERY painful and something to be AVOIDED and FEARED! When we make execution painless and we take 20+ years to get to it, they don’t fear it. There is today a story of a 71-year-old man who was in prison with appeals for 35 years! He said that since he is 71 he is ready to die and offers no remorse. I usually agree with you but not this time.
It may not be a deterrent, but it gets rid of the crazies who are killing people. If a person has been conclusively tied to a crime punishable by the death penalty, then execute them. An eye for an eye. It’s only fair.
Maybe if the capital punishment was meted out in a much quicker way it WOULD be a deterrent. It is not a deterrent now because the average time before an execution is 20 years from the date of sentencing…and there are so few executions done no one really pays attention to them…how can capital punishment be a deterrent if there are so few carried out in a timely manner?
Well – here’s a thought lets make the punishment match the crime – substituting HE/HIS for SHE/HER in the quote below would work for me.
“she was beaten, sexually battered and strangled to death with her own clothes”
Seems fair.
Capital punishment may not be much of a deterrent, regardless of how humane OR horrible it may be. Ted Bundy said, “My opinion is that the law is, the death penalty is, of absolutely no deterrent value – and I think it’s supported by the recent crime statistics for the state of Florida, which shows that murder is increasing. . . . It does not, will never restore any measure of compensation to the victims’ families or to the state.” (As quoted in Ted Bundy: Conversations with a Killer by S.G . Michaud & H. Aynesworth.)
I’m not saying capital punishment should be banned. It is not a deterrent, maybe, and it definitely costs the taxpayers more to put one to death than to keep him in prison for life. Maybe what we need is an overhaul in the judicial system.
Kill killers as humanely as possible if you want them dead.
The lack of pentobarbital sodium would not be a problem if the method of execution would match the method of murder. For example, if a murderer used a gun, then he should be executed by firing squad. In this case, since the victim was killed by being strangled, thereby stopping oxygen to her body, the murderer could be put in a vacuum chamber or the old-fashioned gas chamber. Yes, make it painful and brutal so that the horror of the execution would deter the criminal from taking a person’s life. We have made the execution method clean and painless but also it has become something that criminals are not afraid of anymore. I say bring back the fear and give the criminals something to think about, that if they commit murder and are convicted, their execution would be just as painful. And that is my 1st Amendment opinion.
“Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding fine.”
Wow! 27 years later now justice for the family of the victim. Smh.