A South Dakota death row inmate faces lethal injection Monday night. Eric Robert is scheduled to die at 10 p.m. for his role in killing a corrections officer during a failed escape attempt from the state penitentiary.
Until his death, convicted murderer Eric Robert is in a holding cell, feet away from the execution room where he will die. Robert admitted to beating South Dakota State Penitentiary correctional officer RJ Johnson while he and a fellow inmate tried to escape in April 2011.
At a hearing a year ago, Robert waived his rights to trial and sentencing by a jury and confessed to killing the prison staff member. Judge Brad Zell found him guilty and sentenced him to death.
"As Robert has stated in court, anyone who would have stood in his way as an oppressor would have died that day," Zell says.
The state of South Dakota has one drug, pentobarbital, to use during tonight’s execution. Robert has waived all of his appeals; his attorney says the inmate believes he deserves to die.
