Oklahoma executes convicted killer

OKLAHOMA CITY – Oklahoma put a convicted killer to death by lethal injection on Tuesday, becoming the sixth U.S. state to resume executions since the Supreme Court lifted a temporary moratorium on capital punishment in April.

Terry Short, 47, was condemned in 1997 for the death of Ken Yamamoto, a Japanese exchange student.

Yamamoto had been an inadvertent victim of Short’s rage.

According to court documents Short fire-bombed the apartment of an ex-girlfriend. She escaped but the flames spread to Yamamoto’s apartment and he died from his burns.

Prison spokesman Jerry Massie said Short declined to give a last statement in the state’s death chamber in McAlester. For his last meal he requested 10 pieces of fried chicken.

Oklahoma became the sixth state to resume executions since the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the three-drug cocktail used in most executions for the past 30 years.

In April, it rejected the challenge by two Kentucky death row inmates who argued the current lethal injection method inflicts needless pain and suffering in violation of a constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Executions have since been carried out in Georgia, Mississippi, Virginia, South Carolina and Texas. Short was the seventh convict put to death in America this year.