the state of Ohio executed William Smith, a 47-year-old man convicted of killing a woman in 1987, after a court rejected a claim that he suffered from brain damage.

the state of Ohio executed William Smith, a 47-year-old man convicted of killing a woman in 1987, after a court rejected a claim that he suffered from brain damage.
Smith was pronounced dead at 10:19 a.m. EST following an injection of lethal drugs at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, according to Kim Norris, a spokeswoman for the attorney general of Ohio. Smith was convicted of the stabbing murder of Mary Bradford, 47, whom he also raped and robbed in her Cincinnati apartment after they had met in a bar. The execution was the seventh in the United States this year and the 951st since the country brought back the death penalty in 1976.
Smith admitted that he stabbed Bradford about 10 times during an argument over cocaine and cigarettes, which he claimed she took from him. Prosecutors alleged that he raped her after the knife attack and then stole two television sets and a stereo from her apartment.
The Ohio Parole Board unanimously upheld his sentence, but a federal district judge in Cincinnati had stayed his execution on grounds that the state did not thoroughly investigate his claim that his behavior was affected by brain damage.
An appellate court overturned the stay earlier in the week, saying a scan failed to confirm such damage.