Wed., 2-25-98--

Reginald Powell, convicted of killing 2 brothers in a drunken brawl,

was executed by injection early Wednesday after unsuccessfully arguing

that he did not receive an adequate defense from an attorney who became

his lover.

Powell, 29, was pronounded deaed at 12:04 a.m. at the Potosi Correctional

Center in southeast Missouri.

As the 1st drug was administered, Powell blinked 4 times, puffed a couple

of times then coughed twice. His final words were "I love my family."

The case drew national attention because of the affair between Powell and

his original trial lawyer, Marianne Marxkors, relationship that she said

clouded her judgment.

Marxkors admitted she began falling in love with Powell soon after she

was appointed as a public defender to handle his case. After his

conviction, they had their first sexual encouonter in a holding cell near

a St. Louis courtroom.

During the trial, prosecutors offered a plea bargain of life in prison in

exchange for a guilty plea. Marxkors turned it down and never put Powell

on the stand during the penalty phase. She said later she thought she

could somehow get Powell off on a manslaughter conviction.

Powell's attorneys had sought commutation of the sentence to life in

prison. Marxkors, now 45, pleaded unsuccessfully Tuesday with Gov. Mel

Carnahan for the life of a man she has called her "soul mate."

She said that "had he had a fair trial, and the jury decided to kill him,

that would be 1 thing. But I took that away from him. This verdict is

colored by my lack of objectivity and my mistakes."

Prosecutors have said Powell's affair did not interfere with the verdict

and there was not evidence that the plea bargain had not been offered to

him.

Court records show that Powell grew up virtually without parental

supervision in rough St. Louis neighborhoods. 1 test put his IQ at 65.

Prosecutors said that Powell and another man beat and killed Freddie

Miller, 39, and his brother, Arthur Miler, 29, during a drunken brawl in

St. Louis in 1986.

After the other man stopped, Powell kept going, stomping both men so

hard he broke nearly all of their ribs. Then he stabbed the brothers to

death and robbed them of $3 and a pack of cigarettes.

Powell is the 1st condemned inmate to be executed this year in Missouri,

and the 40th overall in that state since Missouri resumed executions in

1989. Missouri trails only Texas (146), Virginia (47), and Florida (39)

in the numbers of prisoners executed since 1977.

Powell is the 10th condemned prisoner to be executed this year in the

USA, and the 442nd overall since America resumed executions on Jan. 17,

1977.

(sources: Assoicated Press and Rick Halperin)

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