WASHINGTON,  - Dopo un breve rinvio disposto dalla Corte Suprema degli Stati Uniti, la Florida ha messo a morte, mercoledi' sera, un uomo che nel 1985 violento' e uccise una donna in un cimitero.

Johnny Robinson era stato condannato per l'omicidio di Beverly St. George. Doveva essere messo a morte alle 18.00 locali, la mezzanotte in Italia, ma la Corte Suprema, un quarto d'ora prima dell'ora fatale, aveva chiesto un rinvio per esaminare un appello in extremis, salvo poi decidere un'ora dopo, con cinque voti contro quattro, che l'esecuzione doveva andare avanti.

I giudici supremi hanno respinto tutte le argomentazioni della difesa: che la condanna era frutto di razzismo (Robinson era un nero), che l'uomo accusato dello stesso delitto aveva recentemente ritrattato la sua testimonianza contro di lui, e che il sistema d'esecuzione utilizzato in Florida, cioe' l'iniezione letale, e' crudele e disumano.

After brief delay, Florida inmate executed in 1985 murder

After a 90-minute delay asked by the U.S. Supreme Court, Johnny L. Robinson was executed Wednesday for the 1985 murder of a Plant City woman in a northeast Florida cemetery.

Robinson, 51, was condemned for the fatal shooting of Beverly St. George, whose car had broken down in St. Johns County. He was pronounced dead at 7:34 p.m., said Jacob DiPietre, a spokesman for Gov. Jeb Bush.

He was originally scheduled to die by injection at 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison, but just 15 minutes before the execution process was to begin, the U.S. Supreme Court asked the state "to wait for further word" without saying how long that wait might be.

Shortly after 7 p.m., the nation's high court, voting 5-4, denied both appeal issues, according to JoAnn Carrin, a spokeswoman for state Attorney General Charlie Crist.

Reporters, official witnesses and family members of the victim waited in the witness chamber at the bleak prison for 1 1/2 hours before curtains hiding the death chamber opened at 7:23 p.m. to reveal Robinson, strapped to a gurney with intravenous tubes running to his arms.

At one point during the wait, Robinson's appeal attorney, Peter Cannon, got up and walked over to a prison guard and asked, "What is going on with my client."

The guard quietly told him to sit back down, which he did.

Robinson was asked by a prison official if he had any last words.

"Yep!" he said. Then he said, "Later!" And that was all.

As the lethal cocktail flowed into his body, he blinked a few times and his chest heaved several times, as if he were trying to catch his breath. He then became still.

Prisons spokesman Sterling Ivey later said Robinson had been kept in his cell from the time of the requested delay until time for the execution sequence to begin.

Cannon had launched a multifaceted attack to try to save his client, but was turned down by court after court.

Wednesday, he sent a second appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court after being rejected by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta late Tuesday and again on Wednesday. Earlier appeals were turned down in the Circuit Court in St. Johns County, the Florida Supreme Court and federal court in Jacksonville.

The last appeals included arguments that his death sentence was the result of racism in St. Johns County and that co-defendant Clinton Fields recanted testimony.

They also challenged Florida's method of execution as cruel and unusual punishment because it uses the chemical pancuronium bromide in the lethal cocktail given the condemned. Opponents of the drug's usage say it can cause prisoners to suffocate before they lose consciousness and is so cruel that some states have banned its use by veterinarians to euthanize animals.

St. George, 31, was driving to Quantico, Va., to attend a child custody hearing when her car broke done on I-95. She was abducted at gunpoint by Robinson and Fields. She was handcuffed and taken to Pellicer Cemetery, where she was raped by both men, and shot twice in the head.

Robinson, however, who was black, said the woman agreed to go with them to the cemetery and he and St. George had consensual sex on the hood of his car. He claimed that during the sexual activity, a struggle occurred and his .22-caliber pistol went off hitting her in the face. Robinson said he shot her again because he did not think people would believe that the fatal shooting of a white woman was an accident.

5 days after St. George's murder, Robinson was arrested for robbing 4 other people in a disabled car and raping one of them.

Robinson was on parole for a Maryland rape at the time. The handgun used to kill St. George was stolen in a burglary the week before.

Robinson was sexually, physically and emotionally abused as a child. He was forced by his grandfather to work in farm fields from the ages of 5 or 6, according to court records.

Robinson becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Florida, and the 58th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1979.

Paul Hill, 49, who died from lethal injection on Sept. 3, for the shooting deaths of an abortion doctor and his body guard, was the last person executed in Florida. Since 1924, Florida has executed 253 state prison inmates and 1 federal prisoner.

Robinson becomes the 10th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 895th overall since America resumed executions on January 17, 1977.