The US Supreme Court rejected a last-minute request last night by an Ohio death-row inmate to halt his execution.
Jay Scott, a schizophrenic man whose case has drawn the attention of the European Union, is due to be put to death later today.
Scott - who murdered a delicatessen owner in 1983 - had his execution halted minutes before he was to die in May, after a similar last-minute reprieve a month earlier.
The EU, in a letter to Ohio governorMr Robert Taft on Tuesday, asked that Scott's life be spared, saying the execution would violate international standards of human rights.
"The European Union opposes the death penalty in all cases and promotes universal abolition," the letter said. "We seek to ensure that executions in countries which are applying it are carried out in accordance with the minimum standards of human rights."
Scott (48) has a long history of untreated illness including schizophrenia. He would be only the second person put to death in Ohio since the state reinstated capital punishment in 1981.
He was found guilty and sentenced to death for the 1983 killing of Cleveland delicatessen owner Vinnie Prince (74) during a robbery with three other men.
Hisattorneys argued his original trial lawyers provided inadequate counsel by failing to raise the issue of his mental fitness during the sentencing phase that might have spared his life.