U.S: First Death Row Prisoner Under Donald Trump's Presidency Executed

The first Death Row prisoner under Donald Trump 's presidency has been executed despite last minute appeals he did not pull the trigger.

Terry Edwards, 43 aka the Subway Murderer was killed by lethal injection in Texas at 10:17pm, last night.

The inmate was executed for killing two sandwich shop employees during a robbery in 2002 after the Supreme Court denied a stay requests.


Terry's lawyers argued both that he was not the trigger man and that his case was tainted by prosecutorial misconduct in arguments that held up the execution by four hours.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark confirmed in a statement this morning that he died at the state's death chamber in Huntsville.

The statement said that Terry's last words were: "Yes, I made peace with God. I hope y'all make peace with this."

The execution was put on hold for about four hours as the Supreme Court considered several motions citing what lawyers for Edwards said were faults in previous legal proceedings.

The court rejected those requests late on Thursday evening.

The execution was the 540th in Texas since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, the most of any state.

Edwards was convicted along with co-defendant Kirk Edwards, an older cousin, of the July 2002 murders of Dallas Subway sandwich shop employees Mickell Goodwin and Tommy Walker in a robbery.

Kirk Edwards has a projected release date of July 2027, Texas Department of Criminal Justice online records showed.

In an editorial posted online on Wednesday, the Dallas Morning News said the execution should be halted because there are too many unanswered questions in the case.

"These questions do not paint Terry Edwards as innocent.

But they do raise uncertainties as to whether the jury was misled when it determined he had pulled the trigger and deserved to die", it said.

Lawyers for Texas have argued that new counsel for Edwards previously tried to halt the execution on similar grounds and that his conviction and sentencing were legal and proper.

John Mills, an attorney for Edwards, said he has evidence indicating that Edwards was not the gunman.

"Previous counsel has done virtually almost nothing to ensure that his case was investigated and that the powerful evidence undermining the reliability and the fairness of his conviction was brought to light," Mills said in an interview.

One of the main pieces of evidence was gunshot residue testing, which at trial was presented and used by prosecutors who said Terry Edwards fired the fatal shots.