Appeal Denied, Another Heads to the Chamber

If the state goes through with the execution of Yokamon Hearn, scheduled for July 18, he will be the sixth person to die in Texas' current schedule of 14 planned executions for 2012. Hearn would become the 483rd inmate executed in Texas since reinstatement of the death penalty and the 244th inmate to die on Gov. Rick Perry's watch.

Hearn was sentenced to death for the 1998 robbery and murder of 23-year-old Frank Meziere in Dallas. Reportedly, Hearn and three accomplices kidnapped Meziere at gunpoint, forced him into his own car, and took him to an industrial area in the Oak Cliff area of South Dallas, where they shot him a dozen times before taking his wallet and personal items and fleeing in his car, which was found abandoned about five miles from the body. Hearn's execution has been set before but was stayed while courts considered appeals claiming he was mentally retarded and could not legally be executed. His most recent appeal – arguing that a clinical assessment should be allowed to demonstrate his mental retardation in lieu of traditional IQ scores – was denied in January.