Texas Executes Edward Busby as 600th Since 1982 After Supreme Court Lifts Stay
Updated
Updated · CBS New York · May 15
Texas Executes Edward Busby as 600th Since 1982 After Supreme Court Lifts Stay
13 articles · Updated · CBS New York · May 15
8:11 p.m. local time marked Busby’s death by lethal injection in Huntsville, hours after the Supreme Court vacated a stay that had paused his execution over intellectual disability claims.
Two experts—one for the defense and one hired by Tarrant County prosecutors—had found Busby intellectually disabled, but a trial judge upheld his death sentence in 2023 and the 5th Circuit rejected a final stay request Thursday night.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by two other justices, dissented from the high court’s intervention, writing that the court was rushing to “extinguish” a life despite the case’s circumstances.
Busby was condemned for the 2004 abduction and killing of 77-year-old retired TCU professor Laura Lee Crane, who prosecutors said suffocated in the trunk of her car with duct tape over her face.
The execution made Busby the 600th person put to death in Texas since 1982, underscoring the state’s outsize role in U.S. capital punishment as courts still weigh how intellectual disability should be assessed.
Is Texas's death penalty a 'lethal lottery' based on race and zip code?
With 600 executions costing over $1.3 billion, what is the true price of justice?
Why was a man executed after the state itself argued he was intellectually disabled?
Texas Executes 600th Inmate: Intellectual Disability Controversy, Systemic Disparities, and the Future of the Death Penalty
Overview
Edward Busby's execution on May 14, 2026, marked Texas's 600th execution since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, highlighting the state's leading role in capital punishment. Busby was sentenced to death in 2005 for the deadly robbery and suffocation of Laura Crane. His execution was delayed twice, including a review of his intellectual disability claim, but ultimately proceeded after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted a stay, even as national standards for determining intellectual disability were under review. This case underscores ongoing debates about fairness, evolving legal standards, and the finality of the death penalty in Texas.