United States:The United States Supreme Court has halted an execution in Virginia, and two other states have postponed executions planned for next month, in what legal experts described as a de factomoratorium on the use of the lethal injection.
The US Supreme Court is considering a case taken by two death row inmates from Kentucky who argue that the chemicals used in the lethal injection could leave condemned prisoners in such pain that it would violate the US constitution's ban on "cruel and unusual punishment".
Texas, where 26 prisoners have been executed this year, plans no more executions in 2007 after federal and state judges stopped four death sentences from being carried out. Executions also have been delayed in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas and Oklahoma since the court announced last month that it would hear the lethal injection case.
Courts in California, Delaware, Missouri, North Carolina and Tennessee already halted executions because of doubts about the lethal injection.
"The US is clearly in what amounts to a de facto death penalty moratorium," said David Dow, a lawyer who runs the Texas Innocence Network and represents death row inmates.
That assertion will be tested today, when Georgia is due to execute Jack Alderman - who was convicted of killing his wife in 1974 - unless the Supreme Court intervenes.
Florida, which halted executions last December after one inmate took 34 minutes to die, wants to start executing again next month and Mississippi says the Supreme Court deliberations are no reason to delay the scheduled execution of Earl Wesley Berry on October 30th.
All states use the same three drugs for the lethal injection - sodium thiopental, to sedate the prisoner; pancuronium bromide, to induce paralysis; and potassium chloride, to induce cardiac arrest.
Medical researchers have warned that too low a dose of the first drug could leave prisoners conscious but paralysed as the final chemical - normally used to salt icy roads - is pumped through their veins causing excruciating pain.
One thousand and ninety-nine people have been executed in the US since executions resumed in 1977 after a halt imposed by the Supreme Court and 42 have been killed so far this year.
China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Sudan and the US account for more than 90 per cent of executions carried out throughout the world each year.