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Execution
Halted by
Verdict
A lethal injection scheduled
for Thursday night was put
on pause after the lawyer
debated the court's verdict.
Associated Press
HUNTSVILLE, Texas - A court
today halted the planned execution of a
man who was diagnosed as a paranoid
schizophrenic, in a case that critics say
demonstrates problems with the state’s
treatment of the mentally ill.
In a 5-4 ruling, the Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest
criminal court, blocked tonight’s sched
uled lethal injection of Larry Robison
after his attorneys questioned the
inmate’s mental competence. He was
convicted of killing five people in a
rampage 17 years ago.
Death penalty opponents and
Robison’s relatives have held for years
that he should be spared execution
because he was insane and demanded
that Gov. George W. Bush, running for
president as a “compassionate conserv
ative,” show his humanitarianism by
postponing this evening’s punishment.
Heather Browne, a spokeswoman for
the Texas attorney general’s office, said
it was not immediately clear if the state
could or would appeal the court’s deci
sion.
Robison doesn’t deny the rampage
17 years ago in which five people were
killed and says he’s looking forward to
his execution.
“I’m real excited about it and glad to
be leaving here,” he said in a recent
interview.
Before the rampage, Robison had
been diagnosed as a paranoid schizo
phrenic. But he was not considered vio
lent and was released from a number of
public hospitals.
Last week, the Texas Board of
Pardons and Paroles voted unanimous
ly against recommending to Bush that
the death sentence be commuted to life.
Besides the last-minute appeal to the
courts, the only other recourse that had
been left would have been for Bush to
issue a one-time 30-day reprieve, some
thing he never has done in his nearly
five years as governor.
Linda Edwards, a Bush spokes
woman, had said the governor would
announce a decision today.
The former construction worker
from Abilene was arrested Aug. 11,
1982, in Wichita, Kan., driving the car
of 33-year-old Bruce Gardner of Lake
Worth.
The previous day, Gardner was one
of five people found mutilated, shot or
stabbed in neighboring cottages near
Lake Worth. Also killed were Gardner’s
girlfriend, Georgia Ann Reed, 34; her
mother, Earline Barker, 55; and Reed’s
11-year-old son, Scott.
In a cottage next door, authorities
found the remains of Rickey Lee
Bryant, 31, Robison’s lover and room
mate, who had been shot twice in the
head, decapitated, and stabbed 49
times. His genitals were found in the
kitchen sink.
Robison pleaded innocent by reason
of insanity, but a jury convicted him of
capital murder for Gardner’s slaying
and sentenced him to death. The con
viction was overturned because of an
error by the trial judge, but Robison was
retried, convicted and condemned
again.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in
1986 that mentally ill people could be
executed as long as they understood the
punishment that awaited them and why
they were being put to death.
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India 694
C.O. COPIES
169 E. Franklin St. ■ Near the Port Office
Open Late 7 Days a Week
933-9999 .
Local License Plate Office to Close its Doors
The individually contracted
office, located in University
Mall, might close its doors
at the end of next month.
By Ginny Sciabbarrasi
Assistant City Editor
Chapel Hill residents might soon
have to drive to Durham for their car
registration and license plates.
The N.C. Department of Motor
Vehicles announced Thursday that its
privately contracted license plate office
Freed Slaves 7 Underground Railroad Stop Faces Destruction
Burgeoning development
has erased almost all traces
of Sandy Ground, a colony
founded by freed slaves.
Associated Press
NEW YORK- Sandy Ground has
survived pollution and the Depression
in the more than 170 years since it was
founded by freed slaves. Now it faces a
new danger: the developer’s bulldozer.
“It’s devastating. When we come out
of church and look across the street, it’s
hard to believe what’s happening,” said
Yvonne Taylor, who grew up in the
Staten Island community.
With the rampant development,
there’s little left of the oldest existing free
black colony in the United States, which
is listed on the National Register of
Historic Places.
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STORE NEAREST CAMPUS: In Durham at Oakcreek Village Shopping Center, Chapel Hill Blvd
and Garrett Rd Or call 1 -800-3f]-MAXX for location nearest you.
at University Mall would be closing its
doors Sept 30.
“We were notified last week,” said Jon
Parks, spokesman for the N.C.
Department of Transportation. “This
(office) will close unless someone takes
over.”
But Robert Norbutt, who contracts
the office from the state, said he would
not leave until the office had anew con
tract with someone else. “I’m not going
to leave until they get someone quali
fied,” Norbutt said. “If necessary, it will
be open with no shutdown whatsoever.”
Norbutt said he was leaving for per
sonal reasons, but would not comment
Quaint two-story houses that once
faced the church with their gracious
front lawns and yards worn bare by
streams of children are gone. They’ve
been replaced by a row of tightly
packed, aluminum-sided clones.
Sandy Ground was a stop on the
Underground Railroad, protecting run
away slaves seeking freedom in Canada.
Only Sandy Ground has descendants
of early settlers still living there. The
question is, for how long?
Despite a rich history, few know
where or what Sandy Ground is.
“You can find it listed on old Staten
Island maps, but in terms of city history
you have to dig hard to find any details,”
said Dick Dickenson, borough historian
for Staten Island.
Julie Moody Lewis, executive direc
tor of the Sandy Ground Historical
Society, said the reason for the enclave’s
low profile is because “city planners like
to act like it never existed.”
News
“If Chapel Hill continues
to grow, there’s an increase
of people that
can be served. ”
Jon Parks
Spokesman for the N.C. DOT
on the exact circumstances.
“There’s changes in your life and a
time to do something else,” he said.
The office is responsible for issuing
titles and license plates for residents,
The colony was founded in the 1820s
by two New Jersey brothers, Moses K.
and Silas K. Harris. The sandy soil was
considered useless, but the Harris broth
ers introduced strawberries and aspara
gus, two crops that thrive in it.
After Maryland and Virginia barred
freed slaves from harvesting oysters in
1830, hundreds moved to Sandy
Ground to farm oysters in New York
Bay. More than a million oysters were
harvested in some years.
In its heyday in the early 1900s, some
150 families of descendants lived in
Sandy Ground. Today there are 10.
Developers turned their attention to
the area in the late 1970s when the
booming home construction industry
discovered the wide open spaces in the
city’s least populated and most countri
fied borough. After snapping up parcels
of city-owned land in Sandy Ground,
developers turned to the spacious prop
erty owned by blacks. The Sandy
Norbutt said.
The office is the closest option for res
idents of Chapel Hill and Carrboro. If
the University Mall location closes, the
closest DMV license plate outlet will be
in Durham.
All the license plate offices in the state
are privately owned except two, Parks
said. “The General Assembly decided
years ago that all offices would be pri
vately contracted.”
Parks said the office in the mall was
convenient for residents of both towns.
“If Chapel Hill continues to grow,
there’s an increase of people that can be
served,” he said.
Ground Historical Society was formed
in 1979, partly in response to the threat
by developers.
In addition to 10 surviving private
homes and the A.M.E. Rossville Zion
Church and cemetery, all that’s left of
old Sandy Ground are three pieces of
property owned by the historical society.
They are the 1886 Bishop iron forge,
which operated until a suspicious fire
damaged it in 1982; William “Pop”
Pedro’s little Cape Cod-styled house,
now the historical society’s museum;
and an abandoned house willed to the
society.
Pedro, Moody Lewis’ great-grandfa
ther and the unofficial mayor of Sandy
Ground, died in 1988 at 106.
“It’s really just a skeleton,” said one
survivor. She remembers traveling by
horse and buggy to visit Sandy Ground
from her home across the island.
“It was a beautiful sight... but when
it was really worth preserving, people
Friday, August 20,1999
Norbutt took over the office contract
in 1997 after seeing an advertisement in
the newspaper.
Prior to working at the license office,
Norbutt worked for IBM for 25 years.
When he retired, he said he saw a need
for the office and renewed the contract
with the state.
Norbutt said it was necessary to keep
the office open until the contract was
renewed with someone else.
“It’s a commitment I have to the state
and community,” he said
The City Editor can be reached
at citydesk@unc.edu.
weren’t interested in doing anything
about it. Local history meant nothing
and black history meant even less,” she
said.
But the history is there for all who
visit the museum. The museum, which
offers tours and workshops, has wel
comed groups from as far away as Ohio
and Canada. Moody Lewis also runs a
traveling education program in Staten
Island public schools.
Walking through the neighborhood
now, Sylvia Moody D’Alessandro,
Moody Lewis’ mother and a founding
Sandy Ground board member, feels a
deep sadness.
“I think it’s Staten Island’s loss and
New York City’s loss not to have kept
that community intact.”
Today, the once proud black colony
is nearly all white.
Most of the new people moving in
aren’t even aware that this was once a
black community,” Moody Lewis said.
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