Supreme Court Refuses to Block Execution From [HERE] A Black man whose lawyers argued was mentally ill and incompetent for execution was put to death Wednesday evening for killing a 12-year-old white girl more than a decade ago.

Jonathan Green, 44, received lethal injection after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected last-day appeals to spare him. A judge earlier this week stopped the punishment, but an appeals court overturned the reprieve. Then 11th-hour appeals delayed the punishment nearly five hours past the initial 6 p.m. execution time and as the midnight expiration of the death warrant neared. Asked by the warden, who is white, if he had a statement from the death chamber gurney, Green shook his head and replied, "No." But seconds later he changed his mind, saying: "I'm an innocent man. I never killed anyone. Y'all are killing an innocent man."

He then looked down and said his left arm, where one of the needles carrying the lethal drug was inserted, and said, "It's hurting me bad." But almost immediately he began snoring loudly. The sounds stopped after about six breaths. Green was pronounced dead 18 minutes later at 10:45 p.m. It appeared the Supreme Court cleared the way for his execution earlier Wednesday when it rejected an appeal from his attorneys just as the window for the lethal injection opened at 6 p.m. However, the punishment was delayed Wednesday night by another appeal that finally was refused less than two hours before the midnight expiration of the death warrant neared.