Rights Group Raps Georgia and Texas for Two Executions

LONDON — Amnesty International criticized Georgia today for executing a murder accomplice and cited Texas for putting to death a man who committed murder as a juvenile.

In its annual worldwide survey, the London-based human rights organization also protested several executions by lethal injection, which it said “appeared to cause prolonged suffering.”

Roosevelt Green, 28, an accomplice to a murder committed by a co-defendant, was executed in Georgia’s electric chair in January, 1985. The report said that the minister’s son was not present when the 1976 killing occurred but that the court found he was negligent in leaving the 18-year-old woman victim alone with a man he knew to be dangerous.

Charles Rumbaugh was sentenced to death in 1980 for murdering a Texas jeweler when he was 17. Amnesty International protested that his execution in 1985 violated international agreements not to execute convicts for crimes committed when they were under 18.