Two Executions

Michael Tanzi kidnapped, raped, and robbed a woman in Florida in 2000. He confessed to another murder in Massachusetts, but his death sentence in Florida led that state not to prosecute. 

His final appeal involved a procedural issue that multiple people tried, but other than Sotomayor in the past, no one on the Court seems to think a problem. They again dismissed it without comment. 

I think twenty-five years is too long to wait to make an executed legitimate (Breyer dissent). And, yes, when an execution is involved, someone should provide at least a statement explaining their vote.

His lawyers also argue that he has mitigating childhood abuse and trauma. Also, his physical condition makes lethal injection dangerous. Not something the conservatives on the Supreme Court have ever found convincing in the last twenty years.  

Tanzi deserved a long prison term. Execution around twenty-five years after his crime? I don't think so.

Florida disagreed. 

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Mikal Mahdi also murdered people in multiple states, leading one of them to save time and not prosecute. 

He murdered a police officer, too, and to add insult to injury, attacked  (along with another murderer) a prison employee during a failed escape attempt. Does not appear to be a factor in the death sentence, but it is still relevant with LWOP as an alternative.

(Note that the incident occurred a while back.) 

You can find the prosecutor defending sentencing him to death here. A traumatic childhood was offered as mitigating. The long time in solitary is troubling, though maybe somewhat less so when you read about the escape attempt/attack of a prison official.   

(The final appeal argued he had inefficient counsel because not enough was done to show mitigation. SCOTUS again rejected it without comment.) 

The lag time here was a bit less than twenty years, and the firing squad was used instead of lethal injection. Another person who deserves a long prison sentence. The escape attempt in prison, however, is a special wrinkle if THAT was the reason for the execution.

It wasn't, and the capital punishment system is overall problematic, even if single incidents are easier to defend. The best argument here would be that incapitation failed. 

South Carolina, anyways, executed him. 

Note: The case of someone who murdered in more than one state arises in various cases. It might be useful, if possible, for the federal government to step in here since interstate crimes have arisen. 

OTOH, if the crimes are simply state crimes, independent from each other, just in different states, the Constitution might not allow that.