This Week in Texas Prison History

October 28: 

1952 - Huntsville Unit (Walls) - Booker T. Reed, Dallas Negro, convicted of murder in the death of an Irving cabinet maker, went to the electric chair Tuesday morning without making a last statement. He was pronounced dead at 12:07 a.m. Reed was convicted of slaying Boyt Adrain Lovelace, a white man, in the negro's home. Till the end Reed maintained that he failed to get a fair trial, although the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and the United States Supreme Court both refused to set aside the jury's finding. Governor Allan Shivers granted nine stays of execution while the case was being appealed. The first date set for Reed's electrocution was March 3, 1952. George Clifton Edwards, Dallas attorney, Monday made a last-ditch plea for the Board of Pardons and Paroles to recommend commuting Reed's sentence to life imprisonment. "All the matters you presented were decided by the jury and the courts," said Chairman Lyle C. Harris. "We don't have any grounds for clemency." (AP. Dallas Morning News. October 28, 1952)