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Gregory Hunt is scheduled to be put to death Tuesday night at a south Alabama prison. Hunt was convicted of killing Karen Lane, a woman he had been dating for about a month, according to court records.The Alabama execution is one of
in the United States. Executions are also scheduled in Florida and South Carolina. A judge in Oklahoma on Mondayfor an execution in that state, but the state attorney general is seeking to get it lifted.Lane was 32 when she was murdered Aug. 2, 1988, in the Cordova apartment she shared with a woman who was Hunt’s cousin.
Prosecutors said Hunt broke into her apartment and killed her after sexually abusing her. A physician who performed an autopsy testified that she died from blunt force trauma and that Lane had sustained some 60 injuries, including 20 to the head.A jury on June 19, 1990, found Hunt guilty of capital murder during sexual abuse and burglary. Jurors recommended by a vote of 11-1 that he receive a death sentence, which a judge imposed.
Hunt’s final request for a stay of execution, which he filed himself, focused on claims that prosecutors made false statements to jurors about evidence of sexual abuse. The element of sexual abuse is what elevated the crime to a death penalty offense.
In a filing to the U.S. Supreme Court, Hunt, acting as his own attorney, wrote that a prosecutor told jurors that cervical mucus was on a broomstick near Hunt’s body. However, the victim did not have a cervix because of an earlier hysterectomy. The Alabama attorney general’s office called the claim meritless and said even if the prosecutor erred in that statement, it did not throw the conviction into doubt.Bitcoin, the first and largest crypto, was created in 2009 in the wake of the global financial crisis as a decentralized digital asset that could act as an alternative method of payment.
The asset has found more popular use as a store of value, like a digital form of gold. Bitcoin has attracted enthusiastic supporters as prices have climbed almost 1,000% in the last five years. But its volatility and lack of regulation are concerns.AfriBit Africa introduced bitcoin into Soweto West in early 2022 through crypto-denominated grants to local garbage collectors, who are often funded by nonprofits. The groups are made up of dozens of young people, who Mdawida says are more likely to be open to new tech.
After gathering on a Sunday to collect trash, garbage collectors are paid a few dollars’ worth of bitcoin. AfriBit Africa estimates that it has put some $10,000 into the community, with garbage collectors acting as the main agents of spreading bitcoin in Soweto West. In Kibera, many people earn about a dollar a day.Now a small number of other residents hold bitcoin, and some merchants and motorcycle taxis accept payments in crypto.