Execution Report: Michael Griffith

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Griffith's attorneys, who did not contest their client's guilt, presented a psychologist who testified that his violence towards women was rooted in having neglectful mother who was angry and violent when drunk. The defense also presented testimony from law enforcement officers who had worked with Griffith in Texas and Florida and who described him as a model law enforcement officer.

A jury convicted Griffith of capital murder in December 1995 and sentenced him to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and sentence in December 1998. All of his subsequent appeals in state and federal court were denied.

He also received a 60-year prison sentence for the savings and loan and bridal shop robberies.

Griffith did not speak with reporters while he was on death row. When asked at his execution if he wanted to make a last statement, he replied, "No, sir." As the lethal injection was being administered, he faintly whispered, "Please take my spirit to the Lord." He was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m.

Griffith was the first former law enforcement officer to be executed in Texas since July 2003, when former Beaumont police officer and Jefferson County sheriff's deputy Hilton Crawford was executed for kidnapping and murdering the son of some family friends.

By David Carson. Posted on 7 June 2007. Edited on 24 November 2009.
Sources: Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Texas Attorney General's office, Associated Press, Huntsville Item.