56-year-old inmate Rodney Berget was executed in South Dakota this week after killing an officer in an attempted escape in 2011.
This is the first execution in the state since 2012.
It was Ronald “RJ” Johnson’s 63rd birthday the day Berget beat him to death and covered his head in plastic.
The U.S. Supreme Court delayed the execution briefly, and Berget made a joke about the situation before his lethal injection saying, “Sorry for the delay, I got caught in traffic.”
After seeing the graphic crime scene, Ronald’s widow Lynette Johnson said her husband experienced “cruel and unusual punishment”.
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