| Jimmy Lee Gray | |
| Birth Date: | 25 September 1948 |
| Birth Place: | Whittier, California, U.S. |
| Death Place: | Mississippi State Penitentiary, Sunflower County, Mississippi, U.S. |
| Death Cause: | Botched execution by gas chamber |
| Conviction: | Arizona Second degree murder Mississippi Capital murder |
| Conviction Penalty: | Arizona 20 years to life Mississippi Death |
| States: | Arizona and Mississippi |
Jimmy Lee Gray (September 25, 1948 – September 2, 1983)[1] was an American criminal convicted for the kidnapping, sexual assault and murder of three-year-old Deressa Jean Scales in 1976.[2] At the time of this murder, he was free on parole after serving seven years of a 20-year-to-life sentence for the 1968 murder of his 16-year-old girlfriend, Elda Louise Prince in Parker, Arizona.[3] Scales's parents later sued the state of Arizona for releasing Gray.[4]
He was executed in 1983 by the state of Mississippi by gas chamber.[5] He became the first person to be executed in Mississippi since 1976, when capital punishment was reinstated.[6]
Dan Lohwasser, a reporter for United Press International, was one of the observers who witnessed Gray's execution. Lohwasser's account of Gray's death sparked controversy, because of the suffering that Gray exhibited. At the time of Gray's execution, the gas chamber used in Mississippi had a vertical steel pole directly behind the inmate's chair. There was no headrest or strap used to restrain Gray's head. As Gray began breathing in the toxic gas, he started thrashing his head around, striking the iron bar repeatedly before he finally lost consciousness. Officials decided to clear the observation room eight minutes after the gas had been released, because of Gray's injuries.[7] The decision to clear the room was sharply criticized by Dennis Balske, Gray's attorney. "Jimmy Lee Gray died banging his head against a steel pole in the gas chamber while reporters counted his moans (eleven, according to the Associated Press)".
Partly due to Gray's botched execution, Mississippi passed legislation making lethal injection the only method of execution for inmates sentenced after July 1, 1984, though three more inmates (Edward Earl Johnson, Connie Ray Evans and Leo Edwards Jr.) sentenced before this date were still executed by lethal gas. Mississippi's gas chamber was decommissioned in 1998.