PARCHMAN – Unless the governor of Mississippi intervenes, Death Row inmate Joseph Daniel Burns will die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. today. Burns was convicted of capital murder in 1996 for the robbery and stabbing death of Floyd “Mike” McBride, in Tupelo.
Burns’ last attempt to delay his execution failed when earlier this month, his attorneys asked Gov. Haley Barbour for help in getting Burns a mental evaluation.
Burns’ attorney, Glenn Swartzfager, said Barbour was asked to delay Burns’ July 21 execution for the mental examination, the results of which would be used in a clemency petition that was also to be submitted to Barbour.
Burns, 42, has been on Death Row since 1996, when he was convicted of the 1994 murder of Floyd Melvin “Mike” McBride. McBride was the hotel manager of the Town House Motel on Gloster Street in Tupelo.
Court records showed that on Nov. 9, 1994, Burns and his accomplice, Phillip Hale, went to the motel and Hale introduced Burns to his friend McBride. Hale asked McBride if he and Burns could stay at the hotel for a while and McBride agreed.
Later that day, McBride asked Hale and Burns to help him count $3,000 and the two men decided to rob McBride. Hale later testified that he hit McBride and knocked him down and left the room to make sure “nobody was coming.”
Hale said when he returned to the motel office, Burns was stabbing McBride in the back of the neck with a knife, a fork and a Phillip’s head screwdriver. Hale said when he asked Burns what he was doing, Burns stabbed him in the foot.
Burns and Hale wiped the room for fingerprints and left the premises with the $3,000.
Burns was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in 1996.
Hale was later charged with homicide and he received a life sentence on Jan. 29, 1997. He was released on parole on Dec. 1, 2008.
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