Donald Lehman (1933 – January 8, 1981) was an American man who was murdered in front of his family by four men in
Arkansas
Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the O ...
. All four men: James William Holmes, Hoyt Franklin Clines, Michael Orndorff, and Darryl Richley, were convicted of
capital murder and
sentenced to death
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
, albeit Orndorff's sentence was reduced to life without parole on appeal. The other three were all executed one by one on August 3, 1994. It was the first triple execution in the United States in the modern era.
Murder
Donald Lehman, his wife, Virginia, and their daughter, Vicki, were at their home when four men wearing ski masks rang the doorbell and forced their way inside. Lehman was shot three times and severely beaten with a motorcycle drive chain in front of his family. More than $1,000 and several guns were stolen, according to court documents. Holmes, Richley, Clines, and Orndorff were arrested later that day. They were each convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. Orndorff later had his sentence overturned on appeal, and Lehman's family agreed to a life sentence in his case.
Executions
After the
U.S. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
rejected arguments they were being treated like "hogs at a slaughter", Clines, Richley, and Holmes were all executed by
lethal injection on August 3, 1994. All three of them declined to make final statements. Clines was executed first, and was pronounced dead at 7:11 p.m. Richley was pronounced dead 58 minutes later, followed by Holmes at 9:24 p.m.
See also
*
Capital punishment in Arkansas
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Arkansas.
Since 1820, a total of 505 individuals have been executed. According to the Arkansas Department of Correction, as of January 16, 2019, a total of 29 men were under a sentence ...
*
List of people executed in Arkansas
The following is a list of people executed by the U.S. state of Arkansas since 1976, when the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in the United States.
31 people have been executed in Arkansas since 1976: 30 males and 1 female ( Christina ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lehman, Donald
1933 births
1981 deaths
1981 in Arkansas
1981 murders in the United States
Male murder victims
People murdered in Arkansas
Deaths by person in Arkansas