ATLANTA, May 17 (Reuters) - Georgia executed a death row inmate early on Wednesday, after U.S. courts rejected his last-minute appeal to be killed by a firing squad, rather than the state’s lethal injection protocol, which was used to carry out his capital punishment.
J.W. Ledford, 45, had spent about a quarter of a century on death row after being convicted of the 1992 robbery and murder of a doctor. He was pronounced dead at 1:17 a.m. at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, the office of Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr said in a statement.
Lawyers for Ledford said he wanted to be executed by firing squad because a drug he took for nerve pain would lead to an “excruciating death” under Georgia’s lethal injection protocol.
Georgia uses a single drug, pentobarbital, and does not have provisions for death by firing squad. The drug has been used in dozens of executions without major incident.
The last inmate executed by firing squad in the United States was Ronnie Gardner, who was put to death in Utah in 2010, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday denied Ledford’s appeal after lawyers for Georgia called it a delaying tactic that should be rejected for relying on speculative allegations.
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