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 The execution of Brian Keith Terrell, 47, takes to 28 the number
of people put to death in the United States this year.
Terrell was convicted of shooting and beating to death John Watson,
70, after Watson threatened to prosecute him for using forged checks
to steal money out of Watson's bank account, court records showed.
Terrell was executed at 12:52 a.m., the Georgia Department of
Corrections said, nearly six hours later than scheduled, as his
legal team made final attempts to stay his death sentence.
Late on Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay of execution,
just hours after the 11th U.S. Court of Appeals also declined to
halt Terrell's execution.
Terrell had been scheduled to die last March, but was spared after
prison officials detected a "cloudy" appearance in the drug used for
executions, pentobarbital.
 In court documents filed last week, Terrell's lawyer said the state
still does not know what caused the drug to be defective and has not
adopted safeguards to prevent it from happening again.
Georgia's attorneys said the pentobarbital was cloudy because it was
stored at too low a temperature and that the state has executed two
other inmates with the drug since then without incident.
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Terrell had maintained his innocence. He accepted a final prayer but
refused to record a final statement before being put to death at the
Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, the state's
Department of Corrections said in a statement.
Terrell had declined to request a last meal and would be offered the
standard menu of chicken and rice, rutabagas, seasoned turnip
greens, dry white beans, cornbread, bread pudding and fruit punch,
corrections officials said.
Capital punishment in the United States has been declining in recent
years, with the number of executions and new death sentences likely
to hit lows not seen for more than 20 years, according to data
compiled by the non-profit Death Penalty Information Center.
Terrell was the fifth person put to death in Georgia this year, the
center said.
(Reporting by David Beasley in Atlanta, Georgia, and Victoria
Cavaliere in Los Angeles; Editing by Larry King)
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