In Huntsville, David Ray Harris has been executed today

In Huntsville, David Ray Harris has been executed today. Harris, 43, was sentenced to death for the 1985 murder of Mark Mays. A federal judge yesterday had blocked the lethal injection procedure Texas uses for executions; the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the ruling today afternoon. The U.S. Supreme Court later rejected Harris's appeals. Harris gained notoriety for implicating Randall Dale Adams, a hitchhiker he had picked up in a stolen car, in the 1976 death of Dallas police officer Robert Wood. Adams, who had no previous criminal record, served 12 years in prison and came within three days of execution in 1979 before his sentence was commuted to life in prison. Adams was released from prison in 1989, a year after the release of Errol Morris' 1988 documentary "The Thin Blue Line," which suggested he had been wrongly convicted. Harris had initially said he and Adams were both in the car when it was stopped by the officer. He later testified he had lied about Adams' involvement, though he stopped short of saying he committed the murder himself. Harris was never charged in the officer's death. Harris becomes the 10th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas and the 31 in the USA.