HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) – A Texas man who killed a worker who was on his property looking for city code violations has been put to death.
Thirty-three-year-old Adam Ward received a lethal injection Tuesday for the 2005 shooting death of Michael Walker in Commerce, about 65 miles northeast of Dallas. Walker was a code enforcement officer who had been taking photos of junk piled outside the Ward family home.
Ward insisted the shooting was in self-defense, but the 44-year-old Walker only had a camera and a cellphone.
The execution came after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal that argued Ward’s mental illness, including delusions, should have disqualified him from the death penalty.
He’s the ninth convicted killer executed this year nationally and the fifth in Texas, which carries out capital punishment more than other states.
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