Missouri executed a murderer Wednesday night after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a last-minute appeal. He was convicted for robbing and killing a jeweler in 1991.
Herbert Smulls, who killed a St Louis county jeweller in 1991, was declared dead at 10:20 pm local time at the Bonne Terre prison in Missouri. Earlier that day, the court ordered a temporary stay on Smulls' execution following a protest from his lawyers who objected about the drugs to be used to execute him.
Smulls was injected with a lethal dose of pentobarbital, a fast acting drug, said Mike O'Connell, spokesman of Missouri Department of Corrections, reports Reuters. This makes 56-year-old Smulls is the sixth person to be executed in the United States in 2014.
The U.S. Supreme Court lifted the temporary stay on the execution and rejected another stay from a U.S. Court of Appeals. A last minute appeal was filed by Smulls' lawyers but Missouri went ahead with the execution before the death warrant expired at 12.01 a.m.. The court rejected the appeal 30 minutes after his death.
According to O'Connell, Missouri followed the procedures ensuring it was clear of all legal obstacles.
Smull had his final meal of fried chicken, steak, collard greens, macaroni and cheese, candied yams, corn bread, chocolate cake, and cola on Tuesday afternoon, according to Reuters.
He did not give a final statement but said something to his witnesses. Finally, he breathed heavily twice before closing his eyes, reported the Associated Press. This was Missouri's third lethal dose execution after turning to a new compounding pharmacy drug in November. The state refuses to reveal the name of the pharmacy.
"We believe that we have presented some pretty compelling issues about Missouri's execution protocol, particularly as it relates to the use of a compounded drug from an unknown source tested by an unknown laboratory in an industry that is largely unregulated, and where historically there has been very lax oversight coupled with very high profitability," Cheryl Pilate, Smulls' attorney, told msnbc before the execution. "That's a bad combination."
The stay order was signed by Justice Samuel Alito, who is also expected to give out a ruling for a similar petition from Louisiana inmate Christopher Sepulvado, convicted of fatally beating and scalding his six-year-old stepson in 1992. He is due to be put to death next week, reports the Agence France-Presse. Lawyers of both the convicts said that state's failure to reveal the identity of the pharmacy made it impossible to know if the execution constituted "cruel and inhumane punishment" under the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The identities of the pharmacies that produce lethal drugs have been extensively protected by the corrections department. Earlier this month, a 38-year-old first-degree murder convict was given a combination of drugs that included pentobarbital. "I feel my whole body burning," the executed criminal had said then.
