Texas executes 500th inmate

The most-prolific death penalty state in the US executed its 500th inmate on Wednesday as protesters gathered outside the penitentiary walls to rally against a grim landmark in America's capital punishment history.

About 70 people waited outside the prison in central Huntsville, Texas, where Kimberly McCarthy was put to death by lethal injection. After the scheduled execution time of 6pm local time (1am Thursday BST), some chanted "murderers!" as a dozen guards stood behind yellow tape and blocked the road leading to the execution chamber.

McCarthy, 52, was declared dead at 6.37pm. In her final statement, she said: "This is not a loss. This is a win. You know where I'm going. I'm going home to Jesus. I love you all ... God is great," Associated Press reported.

Prison officials administered a single dose of pentobarbital, a barbiturate.

Typically about 10 people gather in Huntsville to protest against each execution. Peter Johnson, 68, stood holding a sign bearing the slogan "Execute justice not people". He said he had travelled from Dallas, three hours away, and this was the fourth or fifth time he had come to express his disgust in front of the red-brick walls of the Huntsville unit.

"Not only is it a tragedy for this particular person, it's a disgrace for our nation and our state," he said. "I feel the way the death penalty is dispensed in the state of Texas is tied to the colour of the killer and the colour of the victim."

Critics of the death penalty have long argued that it disproportionately affects poor people and ethnic minorities. Black people make up 12% of the state's population, but nearly 40% of the 281 inmates on death row.

McCarthy's lawyer, Maurie Levin, had filed a last-ditch appeal alleging that her client's state-appointed legal representation at trial was inadequate and that the composition of the Dallas County jury was unfair because the prosecution used peremptory strikes to remove prospective non-white jurors, with the result that all but one of the 13-person jury was white.

But on Tuesday the Texas court of criminal appeals refused to hear the appeal for the second time in two days. McCarthy's execution had already been stayed twice this year, once only hours before she was due to die. 

Since it resumed capital punishment in 1982, Texas has executed more prisoners than the next six states combined. Virginia, the second-most prolific state, has put to death 110 people. With its 26 million people Texas is the second-largest state in the US by population.

Some outside the prison held posters declaring "Wanted - Serial Killer, Gov. Rick Perry." Like his predecessor, George W. Bush, the Texas governor is a firm believer in capital punishment. In 2011 he said he lost no sleep over the possibility that his state had executed an innocent person.

His spokesman told the Guardian last year that Perry had introduced reforms allowing for greater use of DNA testing, imposing minimum qualifications for court-appointed defence lawyers and making it easier for prosecutors to seek life without parole for offenders. Perry has presided over 261 executions, more than any other governor in modern US history, but the rate of executions has declined from a high of 40 in 2000, Bush's last year.

In 2012, Texas executed 15 prisoners. McCarthy is the eighth inmate given a lethal injection in Texas this year. Another seven executions are scheduled between now and January, including two next month.

McCarthy was a former care-home therapist and a cocaine addict. According to court records, she entered the home of her white neighbour, Dorothy Booth, on the pretext of wanting to borrow some sugar. McCarthy then stabbed the retired 71-year-old five times, beat her, cut off a finger to steal her diamond ring and fled with her purse. She was found guilty and sentenced to death in 2002, five years after the murder in a Dallas suburb.

She is the first woman executed in the US since 2010 and only the 13th since capital punishment was reinstated in the US in 1976. The US has executed 1,338 people since then, the Death Penalty Information Center says.

Polls suggest most Americans still support capital punishment. McCarthy's was the second US execution this week. Brian Davis was put to death for the rape and murder of his girlfriend's mother in Oklahoma on Tuesday after Governor Mary Fallin rejected a recommendation from the state's parole board that the sentence be reduced to life without parole, reports said.