Texas announces execution date for eldest death row inmate

The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Carl Wayne Buntion, 81, was convicted more than three decades ago for the death of 37-year-old Houston police officer James Irby, as the Houston Chronicle reported. In 2012, a jury however returned him to death row and in October 2020 the US Supreme Court denied a final appeal by Buntion’s lawyers. Justice Stephen Breyer said in a statement on Tuesday that Buntion’s “lengthy confinement, and the confinement of others like him, calls into question the constitutionality of the death penalty”. He is the eldest inmate on Texas’s death row, and was scheduled for an execution on April 21 during Tuesday’s court hearing.