Capital law kills 1000th wrongdoer

RALEIGH: A double murderer became the 1000th prisoner executed in the United States since the reinstatement of capital punishment when he was put to death by lethal injection yesterday.

Kenneth Lee Boyd, who was 57, died at 2.15am (8.15pm NZT) in the death chamber of Central Prison in North Carolina's state capital, Raleigh, spokeswoman Pamela Walker of the Department of Corrections said.

Boyd was strapped to a gurney and injected with a fatal mix of three drugs.

Boyd, a Vietnam war veteran with a history of alcohol abuse, was sentenced to death for the murder in 1988 of his wife and father-in-law, committed in front of two of his children.

"I was just going to ask Kathy, my daughter-in-law, to look after my son and my grandchildren. God bless everybody in here," Boyd said in his last words to witnesses, according to an official statement from the Corrections Department.

Boyd's execution drew world attention because of the milestone it represented since the US Supreme Court allowed the death penalty to be brought back in 1976 after a nine-year unofficial moratorium.

About 100 death-penalty opponents gathered on a pavement outside the prison.

The group held candles and read the names of the other 999 convicts who have been put to death.

Between 16 and 18 of the protesters were detained shortly before midnight and charged with trespassing after stepping onto prison property, police said.

Witnesses said many in the group had been on their knees in prayer on a prison driveway.

"This was a peaceful demonstration. They just violated the rules," said State Capitol Police Chief Scott Hunter.

Boyd's last chance of life ran out less than four hours before his appointment with death when Governor Mike Easley said he saw no compelling reason to grant clemency.

In his final few hours, Boyd ate a last meal of steak, baked potato and salad and met his family for the last time.

"His concern is that who he is will get lost in a bizarre coincidence that he's number 1000," Boyd's lawyer Thomas Maher said earlier.

"He said it best: 'I'm a person, not a statistic'."

The first convict to be executed after the death penalty returned to the United States, Gary Gilmore, died in front a firing squad in Utah on January 17, 1977, after ordering his lawyers to drop all appeals.

A novel about his case, The Executioner's Song, won writer Norman Mailer a Pulitzer Prize.

Gilmore donated his eyes for transplant, inspiring a British punk rock song.

Thirty-eight of the 50 US states and the Federal Government permit capital punishment and only China, Iran and Vietnam held more executions in 2004 than the US, according to rights group Amnesty International.

But while the death penalty retains support with a clear majority of Americans, the number of executions has fallen sharply in recent years, and was down to 59 last year.

- REUTERS