Tennessee Killer executed

US: Tennessee executed a man Wednesday who had served nearly three decades on death row for killing three people during a shooting spree at a Nashville convenience store.

Hours before Cecil Johnson was pronounced dead at 1:34 am (0734 GMT), two US Supreme Court justices engaged in a sharp exchange over whether to grant a stay of execution to the alleged killer 29 years after his crime. Last-minute efforts to grant him clemency or stop the execution failed.

"The delay itself subjects death row inmates to decades of especially severe dehumanizing conditions of confinement," wrote veteran Justice John Paul Stevens.

"There was no physical evidence tying Johnson to the crime," he added, noting that it was not until 1992 that Tennessee finally granted Johnson access to "substantial evidence undermining key eyewitness testimony against him."

Johnson had been convicted for murdering Bobby Bell, the store owner's 12-year-old son, and two men sitting in a nearby taxicab.

From the execution chamber at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, the 53-year-old mouthed "I love you" repeatedly to his family, The Tennessean daily reported. Washington, Thursday, AFP