The US state of Georgia has executed a 72-year-old man, its oldest death row inmate, for the killing of a store manager during a robbery decades ago. Brandon Astor Jones was pronounced dead in the early hours of Wednesday morning after an injection of barbiturate pentobarbital at the state prison in Jackson. He was convicted in the 1979 shooting death of suburban Atlanta store manager Roger Tackett. Jones declined to make a final statement in front of witnesses but agreed to have a prayer read. Jones was initially still with his eyes closed and then swallowed a couple of times and moved his head slightly. He opened his eyes and turned his head to his left, appearing to look at a clock on the wall. Then he closed his eyes again and took a few deep breaths before falling still. The execution was delayed while the US Supreme Court considered appeals from Jones's lawyers. They asked the justices to block the execution for either of two reasons: because Jones was challenging Georgia's lethal injection secrecy law or because he said his death sentence was disproportionate to his crime. The court denied the requests for a stay. The challenge to Georgia's strict execution secrecy law...
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