USA made its first run of 2019

The United States proceeded yesterday to their first execution, in 2019, of a man convicted of murdering a police officer 30 years ago during a robbery attempt.

Robert Mitchell Jennings, 61, was pronounced dead at 6:33 pm local time (0033 GMT Thursday) in a prison in Huntsville, Texas.

According to a court decision and the local media, he was found guilty of shooting Elston Howard in an adult bookstore on July 19, 1988, in an adult bookstore.

Howard, 24, was arresting a bookstore clerk for illegally showing badgraphic movies when Jennings, who had just stolen an adult movie theater, walked in.

Jennings walked towards Howard and shot him twice. After the policeman fell, he fired him again before escaping to his vehicle, where he told an accomplice that he had shot down a "security guard".

The defendant has appealed several times since his conviction in 1989 and his supporters have pointed out the difficulty of his education and his intellectual limitations in his leniency applications.

This week, a court rejected his last appeal, focusing on the weaknesses of his legal defense in previous cases.

The United States executed 25 executions in 2018, including 13 in the state of Texas alone. (AFP-NA)