Execution Report: Robert Sparks

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A jury found Sparks guilty of the capital murder of Raekwon Agnew and Harold Sublet Jr. in December 2008 and sentenced him to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed his conviction and sentence in October 2010. All of his subsequent appeals in state and federal court were denied.

In his appeals, Sparks's lawyers claimed that he did not receive a fair trial because a prosecution expert testified incorrectly about what his classification would be in prison if a death sentence were not imposed and because one day, a bailiff wore a tie bearing an image of a syringe. According to court records, however, the witness's incorrect testimony was corrected upon cross-examination, and the bailiff covered his tie such that none of the jurors were believed to have seen it. The appeals courts, consequently, declined to consider these two claims.

Sparks's lawyers also claimed that he was intellectually disabled, citing his paranoia about being poisoned as one indication.

In an order issued by the U.s. Supreme Court on the day of Sparks's execution denying his request for a stay, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that while she did not disagree with the denial, she was troubled by bailiff's tie and hoped that in any future such incidents, the judge would make sure either the offending item or the officer is completely removed from the jury's presence.

Six members of the Agnew family, including both of Sparks's stepdaughters, attended his execution and watched from a viewing room adjacent to the death chamber.

In his last statement, Sparks turned to look at the family. "I am sorry for the hard times," he said to them, "and what hurts me is that I hurt y'all," he said in his last statement. "I love y'all. I am ready," he then said.

The lethal injection was then started. As the drug, pentobarbital, began taking effect, he said "I feel it," then became unconscious. He was pronounced dead at 6:39 p.m.

"The day when the situation was going on, he said that we wouldn't make it," LaKenya Agnew told an Associated Press reporter afterward. "Twelve years later, we're both standing here."

By David Carson. Posted on 30 December 1899.
Sources: Texas Department of Criminal Justice, court documents, Associated Press, Huntsville Item, Texas Tribune.