Feb. 5 (UPI) — The State of Texas executed a Black man convicted of killing a pastor during a robbery in 2011, despite his claims that while he was present during the crime he was not responsible for the murder.
Steven Lawayne Nelson, 37, was executed by lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville and was pronounced dead at 6:50 p.m. CST, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice confirmed to UPI in an emailed statement.
“It is what it is,” Nelson said in his final words, a copy of which was emailed to UPI.
In the statement, he expressed gratitude and gratefulness, while instructing to “Always live for me and enjoy life,” and for, seemingly his family to know, that “I will always love you no matter, that our love is uncontrollable.”
“Know I am not scared. It’s cold [expletive[ in here. But I’m at peace, I’m ready to be at home,” he said.
“Let’s ride, warden.”
Nelson was the first death row inmate to be put executed in Texas this year and the first since the Texas Supreme Court halted last fall’s scheduled execution of Robert Roberson. According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, three other executions have been set between now and April 23, with the sentence of Richard Tabler to be executed on Feb. 13.
Nelson was convicted by a jury in October 2012 of capital murder for killing Clinton Dobson, a pastor, in an Arlington, Texas, church during a robbery of the place of worship on March 3, 2011. Nelson was 24 at the time of the crime.
The church’s elderly secretary, Judy Elliot, was also beaten and injured, but survived.
The prosecution said that Nelson had bound, beat and suffocated Dobson to death, before stealing Dobson’s laptop, iPhone and Elliot’s credit cards and car.
Nelson maintains that he was only a lookout during the robbery for his friends, Antony Springs and Claude Jefferson, and had entered the church only after the two victims had been assaulted.
Neither Springs nor Jefferson were charged though Jefferson was indicted.
“After years of legal battles, Steven Nelson was punished for his heinous crimes and justice has finally been served,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement after Nelson’s sentence was executed.
“My heart is with the family and friends of Pastor Clint Dobson, as well as the loved ones of every victim who suffered at the hands of this monster.”
Nelson was put to death hours after the Supreme Court rejected, without explanation, his request for a stay of execution.
His lawyers argued in court documents that their client should not be killed on the grounds that trial counsel failed to uncover “overwhelming evidence” that Nelson wasn’t the primary assailant and elicited testimony from an expert who said Nelson was a purported psychopath, in part, because he was Black.
They also argued counsel failed to uncover “swaths of mitigating evidence” that favored a life sentence and the state violated the Constitution when it introduced testimonial hearsay about a crucial autopsy report.
The Catholic Mobilizing Network, which advocates to abolish the death penalty, prayed for Nelson throughout the day, sending messages of hope and comfort to his family online.
“Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord,” it said on X after Nelson was killed. “And may perpetual light shine upon him.”
His execution comes amid a political tumult concerning the death penalty with the changing of the guard of the White House.
President Joe Biden, with weeks remaining at the country’s helm, commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 inmates on federal death row.
However, on his first day in office, President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing the Justice Department to pursue the death penalty when applicable, including when an undocumented immigrant commits a capital crime.
The last time the federal government carried out a death sentence was during Trump’s first administration in 2020 when Daniel Lewis Lee was put to death in Indiana — the first federal execution in 17 years.
According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the state executed five people last year.
Demetrius Terrence Frazier is scheduled to be executed by Alabama on Thursday.
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