Florida executes man for killing young boy

0 Comments | AFP, July, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) — A man convicted for the 1991 rape and murder of an 11-year-old boy was put to death on Tuesday in Starke, Florida, state prison officials said.

Mark Dean Schwab, 39, died from lethal injection a year after his execution was put on hold while the US Supreme Court reviewed challenges to the most common method of capital punishment in the United States.

In April the high court rejected death penalty opponents' arguments that lethal injection was a "cruel and unusual" punishment banned by the US constitution, opening the way for the resumption of executions around the country.

The court challenge was made after Florida inmate Angel Diaz survived for an agonizing 34 minutes in 2006 after a lethal dose was mistakenly injected into his muscles...