ATMORE, Ala. - An Alabama man whose execution was delayed in February was put to death on Thursday for the 1991 shooting death of a 22-year-old woman who was abducted during a robbery and later shot in a cemetery.Willie B.
Smith III, 52, received a lethal injection at a prison in southwest Alabama. He was pronounced dead at 9:47 p.m. local time and gave no last words, according to the Associated Press.
The execution went forward after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a request for a stay by his lawyers, who had argued the execution should be blocked on grounds that Smith had an intellectual disability meriting further scrutiny by the courts.Smith was convicted of kidnapping and murdering Sharma Ruth Johnson in October 1991.