THATS RIGHT

Ohio executes man who raped, killed 6-month-old
Wednesday, May 01, 2013 | 12:51 PM

LUCASVILLE, Ohio (AP) — A man convicted of killing a six-month-old as he raped her was executed Wednesday despite his arguments that he never meant to hurt her.
Steve Smith, 46, was executed by lethal injection for the September 1998 killing of his live-in girlfriend’s daughter, Autumn Carter, in Mansfield in northern Ohio.

Smith had recently tried to get his sentence reduced to life in prison, arguing that he was too drunk to realise that his assault was killing Autumn, and he didn’t mean to hurt the baby.
Smith’s daughter and only child, 21-year-old Brittney Smith, wept loudly in the 25 minutes between when her father walked into the death chamber flanked by prison guards and when he was pronounced dead at 10:29 am.
Steve Smith declined to say any last words, then looked at his daughter sitting behind a pane of glass.
“I love you,” she said as she wept. Smith turned his head away and appeared to be struggling not to cry, his chin wavering.
Back on the night of September 29, 1998, Autumn’s mother was awoken by Smith, her live-in boyfriend of four months.
Smith, who was extremely drunk and naked, laid a naked and lifeless Autumn on Frye’s bed, according to court records.
Frye rushed the baby and her two-year-old daughter to a neighbour’s house and called 911. Autumn was pronounced dead after doctors tried to revive her for more than an hour, and Smith was arrested.
At the time, Smith told police that he “didn’t do anything.”
“I’m not sick like that,” he said.
At trial, Smith didn’t testify in his own defence on the advice of his attorneys, even as prosecutors repeatedly referred to him as a “baby raper,” showed pictures of Autumn’s battered body and told jurors that her assault lasted up to a half-hour.
Expert witnesses for Smith testified that he might have accidentally suffocated the girl within three to five minutes of the assault.
The jury found Smith guilty of aggravated murder and sentenced him to die.
At an April 2 hearing in which Smith sought to have his death sentence reduced to life in prison, he admitted to the crime and said he didn’t mean to kill Autumn.
He also told the Ohio Parole Board that he was not in his right mind the night of the crime and has to live every day with what he did. He said he was sorry and wished he could ask Autumn for forgiveness.
The board and Governor John Kasich unanimously turned him down, with the board calling him “the worst of the worst.”

Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Ohio-executes-man-who-raped–killed-6-month-old#ixzz2S4Mzl3vS