— James Ronald Meanes, convicted of murder, lethal injection,Texas.
Executed December 15, 1998 

Ohio welder Meanes and his accomplice Sandoval “Carlos” Santana shot the driver of an armored car as it stopped at a Houston department store. They stole $1.1 million and fled only to be caught an hour later. The Associated Press reported that “judicial oversight resulted in an additional seven years on death row for Meanes after prosecutors lost track of his case once a federal judge rejected an appeal in 1988.”

— Patrick Coughlin, convicted of murder, firing squad, Utah.
Executed December 15, 1896

Coughlin moved from Massachusetts to Utah with the construction of the Union Pacific railroad. Described as an angry child, hem had accumulated numerous charges by age twenty-one. Coughlin and an accomplice were convicted of killing two law officers. He was offered the choice between hanging and firing squad. Coughlin chose the latter.

— Robert Atworth, convicted of robbery and murder, lethal injection,Texas.
Executed December 14, 1999

Atworth shot, stabbed, and robbed Thomas Carlson, then severed the victim’s right-hand little finger, where he’d worn a ring. Upon being apprehended, Atworth blamed the crime on an alternate personality of his by the name of Nino. Later he asked that no appeals be made on his behalf.

— Robert W. Williams, convicted of murder, electric chair, Louisiana.
Executed December 14, 1983

Williams maintained that when he walked into the A&P supermarket to rob it, he never intended to shoot the on- duty security guard; he said that his sawed-off shotgun went off accidentally. Williams was the tenth prisoner executed since the federal government had reinstated the death penalty seven years earlier.

— Angel Diaz, convicted of murder, lethal injection, Florida.
Executed December 13, 2006

It was Diaz’s death that brought a temporary statewide halt to executions by Florida’s then-governor, Jeb Bush. Diaz’s death took thirty-four minutes instead of the typical fifteen. After the initial dose, Diaz’s lawyer said his client was still conscious, moving his mouth for twenty minutes. It took a second dose to end Diaz’s life. Gov. Bush appointed a panel to investigate whether lethal injection could be considered “cruel or unusual punishment,” and all death sentences were put on hold.

Diaz had been convicted and sentenced to death for killing Joseph Nagy, a strip-club manager, with two accomplices.

— Stanley “Tookie” Williams (aka Big Took) , convicted of murder, lethal injection, California.
Executed December 13, 2005

Williams spent his time on death row writing children’s books with peace and antigang messages, donating the proceeds to anti-gang promotion charities. He was nominated for the Nobel Prizes for Literature and for Peace, but Williams’s life before prison had been exactly the opposite. In 1971 he co founded the violent street gang the Crips, and in 1981 he was convicted for the murders of four people. Williams never admitted to the crimes, prompting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to refuse clemency despite appeals from people including Rev. Jesse Jackson and Jamie Foxx, who portrayed Williams in the TV movie  “Redemption.

— Lem Tuggle, convicted of rape and murder, lethal injection, Virginia.
Executed December 12, 1996

Sporting an arm tattoo saying “Born to Die,” Tuggle was the final man to be executed out of the six who pulled off the largest deathrow escape in U.S. history. Already on death row for the rape and murder of a fifty-two-year-old woman, Tuggle, along with five other inmates, used stolen uniforms to escape in a prison van. Within three weeks all six were apprehended, and by 1993 all but Tuggle had been executed.

— Vincent Cooks, convicted of murder, lethal injection,Texas.
Executed December 12, 2001

Cooks stood 6’3″ and weighed three hundred pounds. Witnesses of a robbery in which a police officer was killed identified a significantly shorter, slimmer man as the perpetrator. However, Cooks stood trial and was convicted of murder.

— Willie Green, convicted of murder, electric chair, Illinois.
Executed December 11, 1931

The Chicago Daily Tribune recorded little about Green, age thirtyone, who faced the electric chair for killing grocer Max Newman. He was executed the same day as three other convicted murderers at the Southern Illinois Penitentiary in Menard. He delivered his last words while shaking hands with a priest.

— Nicholas Viana, convicted of murder, hanging, Illinois.
Executed December 10, 1920

The nineteen-year-old Viana said that he had walked into a pool hall one day and a week later became a criminal. Viana murdered a saloon owner during a holdup. He spent his last hours with his mother singing “Mother o’ Mine” at her request. On the way to the death cell he sang “Miserere.”