CALIFORNIA EXECUTES MAN WHO KILLED TWO WOMEN OVER DRUG DEAL

SAN QUENTIN, Calif Prison officials executed a three-time murderer early
Wednesday, making him the 11th inmate put to death in California since
capital punishment was reinstated in 1977.

Donald Beardslee, 61, was executed by injection for killing two women in
1981 while on parole for a third slaying. Through an attorney, Beardslee
thanked the protesters who gathered outside the prison. "He wanted known
his appreciation for these people's presence," said actor and anti-death
penalty activist Mike Farrell.

The execution came only hours after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger rejected a
clemency petition seeking to commute the death sentence to life without
parole, and the Supreme Court rejected two last-minute appeals.

Beardslee's lawyers claimed he suffered from brain maladies when he killed
Stacey Benjamin, 19, and Patty Geddling, 23, to avenge a soured $185 drug deal.

His appeals before the Supreme Court included claims that lethal injection
constitutes cruel-and-unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth
Amendment, and that jurors were unfairly influenced when they rendered the
death verdict.

The court denied his appeals without comment.

The governor also rejected a request for a 120-day delay of the execution
sought by defense lawyers who wanted the time to reopen the case before a
federal court.

"Nothing in his petition or the record of his case convinces me that he did
not understand the gravity of his actions or that these heinous murders
were wrong," Schwarzenegger said in a statement. "I do not believe the
evidence presented warrants the exercise of clemency in this case."

Prosecutors brushed aside defense arguments that Beardslee was an unwitting
dupe during the killings claiming he helped with the murder plot and sent
his roommate to get duct tape to bind the victims before they even arrived
at his apartment.

"We are not dealing here with a man who is so generally affected by his
impairment that he cannot tell the difference between right and wrong,"
Schwarzenegger said.

The governor also dismissed the contention that Beardslee should be spared
because he was the only one of the three people convicted in the murders
who received a death sentence. The governor noted that Beardslee was the
only one on parole at the time for another murder.

Beardslee, a machinist, served seven years in Missouri for murdering a
woman whom he met in a St. Louis bar and killed the same evening. After
being released, he killed Benjamin and Geddling.

Beardslee chose not to have any of his family members witness the execution
and hadn't had a family visit for at least the past month. He turned down a
last meal, only drinking some grapefruit juice.

Outside the prison compound, about 25 miles north of San Francisco, some 30
protesters carried candles and signs that said "Don't Kill In Our Name" and
"Stop State Murder." One death penalty supporter carried a sign reading
"Bye Bye Beardslee."

Activists opposed to capital punishment also staged a small demonstration
outside the U.S. Embassy in Austria to protest Austrian-born
Schwarzenegger's decision.