A federal court ruled today that lethal injection does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment, clearing the way for California to execute next week a man convicted of hacking four people to death.
Kevin Cooper (46) is due to be executed on Tuesday for using a hatchet, knife and ice pick to kill a couple, their 10-year-old daughter and her friend in 1983.
He says he is innocent. If the execution goes through, it will be California's first in two years and the 11th since 1976, the year the Supreme Court legalized capital punishment.
"There also appear to be questions concerning the underlying conviction that have been and continue to be the subject of impassioned debate," US District Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose, California, wrote in his decision. He added:
"The present case, however, concerns the discrete question of whether Plaintiff has met the legal standing for enjoining California's use of lethal injection as a method of execution.
"Because the Court finds and concludes that Plaintiff has not met this standard and has delayed unduly in asserting his claims ... a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction is denied."
Some opponents of capital punishment have rallied behind Cooper, including civil rights leader Mr Jesse Jackson, who met him at San Quentin prison north of San Francisco today.
"He is amazingly calm and resolved within," Mr Jackson told reporters in an interview. "His spirits are strong and I shared with him his challenge is to prepare to live and not to prepare to die. He must not surrender his spirit, he must hold on."