Minister’s Son Who Killed 2 Is Executed

North Carolina executed Harvey Lee Green Jr., a minister’s son, by lethal injection, making him the first African American to be put to death since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1977. Green was executed at Central Prison in Raleigh despite calls by four of the state’s black political leaders for Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. to delay the execution and allow Green’s lawyers access to the state’s investigative and prosecutorial files. Green was pronounced dead at 2:16 a.m., North Carolina Department of Correction spokeswoman Patty McQuillan said. He was sentenced to die after pleading guilty to beating to death a store clerk and customer during a 1983 robbery of a dry cleaners in Bethel, N.C.