MAN EXECUTED FOR MURDERING SCHOOLTEACHER IN BAYTOWN

Convict dying from advanced hepatitis C opted to drop appeals

HUNTSVILLE -- Convicted killer Richard Wayne Smith was executed Tuesday
evening for the 1992 robbery and slaying of a schoolteacher moonlighting as
a store clerk.

Smith, 43, dropped all appeals to his conviction for the Baytown murder of
Karen Birky, allowing the state to execute him instead of waiting to die
from advancing hepatitis C.

When a warden asked whether he had a final statement, Smith said, "No, sir."
Smith licked his lips, closed his eyes and exhaled twice before dying.

Smith was pronounced dead at 6:25 p.m., eight minutes after the flow of
lethal drugs began.

He was the 25th convicted killer put to death in Texas this year and the
fourth this month.

Defense attorney Guy Womack said Smith hadn't wavered from his decision late
last year to die. Smith had used a wheelchair since May because of his
failing liver.

"When I tried to dissuade him from dropping his appeals he told me, `Guy,
you don't understand that I'll be much happier dead and not suffering. If I
win the appeal, what does that mean?' " Womack said.

Smith declined to be interviewed by The Associated Press.

According to prosecutors, Smith is seen on a Dec. 2, 1992, surveillance
videotape robbing the convenience store where Birky, 38, worked so she could
buy supplies for her special education students at Lamar Elementary in
nearby Houston.

Birky complied with Smith's demand for money before he apparently walked her
into the parking lot. Witnesses testified Smith fired one shot into Birky's
neck and fled in a stolen Jeep Cherokee.

The victim bled to death aboard an emergency helicopter.

Police later that night found the Jeep in the apartment complex of Smith's
ex-wife. Smith woke up after sleeping in a nearby car and was arrested in
possession of a .32-caliber pistol tied to the killing and three $5 bills
traced to the store.

Smith, a Bowie County, Ark., native and Louisiana parolee in and out of
prison his entire life, has said he was impaired that night and remembers
nothing. Womack believes Smith had a chance at winning an appeal but was
intent on dying Tuesday.

Smith's record of crime and drugs dates to a juvenile marijuana-dealing
charge. He also was convicted of aggravated burglary, armed robbery, auto
theft and forgery before his 1994 capital murder conviction.

"Rickie was a guy who couldn't stop doing dope, and when he did dope he
became a very mean man," said Jim Mount, the prosecutor in Smith's case.

Authorities also said they thwarted what appeared to be an escape plan Smith
and his then-girlfriend organized while he was waiting for his murder trial.

Smith is thought to have contracted hepatitis through a shared heroin
needle. Shirley Cornelius, the assistant Harris County District Attorney who
handles death-row appeals, noted that drug abuse was responsible both for
his illness and his criminal nature.

"He's a perfect example of drug abuse, both for the health reasons and the
sociological reasons," she said prior to Smith's execution.