Texas Attorneys Ask Execution Reprieve Be Lifted

HUNTSVILLE (AP) – The Texas attorney general’s office is appealing a reprieve given to a 29-year-old convict set to die tomorrow for a fatal shooting during a robbery and abductions at a Cherokee County convenience store. State attorneys Tuesday asked the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to remove the stay of execution given to Beunka Adams. Adams’ scheduled lethal injection was stopped Monday by a federal district judge. State lawyers argue the reprieve was improper.

Adams is facing punishment for the 2002 slaying of Kenneth Vandever, 37, outside Rusk. Vandever and two women were abducted during the robbery, one of the women was raped and all three were shot. The women survived. Adams’s lawyers contend he had poor legal help in earlier stages of his appeals and his death sentence is unconstitutional.