A killer has been executed by the state of Alabama despite desperate pleas of mercy from the victim's family.
Joe Nathan James Jr gunned down former lover Faith Hall nearly 30 years ago after breaking in to her friend's home in Birmingham, Alabama in 1994.
Two years later he was convicted and sentenced to death, a punishment upheld after a retrial in 1999.
In a last ditch attempt, the 49-year-old's final appeal was rejected on Tuesday and he was executed at about 9pm local time at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.
The state pushed forward with the execution despite several of Ms Hall's relatives calling for mercy.
Daughter Toni Melton previously told local outlet 6WBRC : "Taking his life will not bring my mother back,"
“This is not justice. This is just another family going through a loss like we did.”
She added that it would have been "pure torture" for James to have known the date of his death while on death row.
They had asked Governor Kay Ivey and the Alabama Attorney General's Office to commute the sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Brother Helvetius Hall said he was 24 when his sister, 26, died, while Toni was just three, and her sister Terry, six.
He described a relationship that was "going bad" and which resulted in James stalking his sister before taking her life.
“Who are we to suggest to take another person’s life? He took someone special from us, but we have forgave him,” he added.
State Representative Juandalynn Givan sent a letter to the governor on Friday requesting a stay of execution.
US Southern District Judge Terry F. Moorer dismissed James' motion for a stay on Monday, saying the inmate “has not carried his burden of persuasion”, reports AL.com.
The dismissed case is one of several James has filed, including claiming the state violated his rights by starting the execution process with several appeals pending and no Certificate of Judgement issued.
James had asked the prison to honour his choice of method.
On July 17 he requested to be killed by nitrogen hypoxia, though there is not yet a state-approved process for deaths in that manner anywhere in the US, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
In a nitrogen hypoxia execution, the prisoner would breathe pure nitrogen, depriving his or her body of oxygen and causing asphyxiation.
Its proponents argue it is a more humane method of execution, but it cannot ethically be tested.
However, in 2018, Gov. Ivey signed a bill giving inmates the option to choose execution by nitrogen hypoxia.
Of the 177 inmates on Alabama's Death Row, at least 50 chose the new method during a 30-day time frame.
But James missed the cut-off by several years.
Judge Moorer suggested James is simply trying to create a "never ending loop of litigation in order to simply stall the execution date indefinitely".
“In short, the mere filing of a lawsuit does not create an automatic ‘pause’ on the ability of the state to execute an inmate subject to a sentence of death,” he added.
