Nathaniel Woods executed after Supreme Court dismisses last-minute appeals

Court had granted last-minute halt to execution of man convicted of murder despite not pulling trigger

Nathaniel Woods, who was granted a stay of execution on Thursday (AP)

A man who had been given a last-minute stay of execution by the Supreme Court has now been put to death after his final appeals were refused.

Nathaniel Woods was due to be executed by the state of Alabama on Thursday, but just 30 minutes before the lethal injection was due to begin it was suspended so the Supreme Court could consider new petitions filed.

His case had been supported by several high-profile figures, including Kim Kardashian-West and the the son of Martin Luther King Jr.

But despite their advocacy, Woods was finally given a lethal injection and pronounced dead inside a prison in Altmore, Alabama at 9.01pm on Thursday evening, local time.

The governor of Alabama, Kay Ivey, also denied a request for clemency.

Woods was convicted in 2005 of the murder of three police officers and the attempted murder of a fourth, even though it was another man who actually pulled the trigger.

Woods was said to have lured the four officers to a flat where he had been selling drugs, where his accomplice Kerry Spencer shot and killed three of them.

However, under Alabama law, being an accomplice to a murder can still draw the death penalty upon conviction.

Spencer, who was also convicted, remains on death row awaiting his own execution.

As the lethal drugs began to flow into his body, Woods made no final remarks but appeared to arrange his hands in a sign of his Muslim faith, reporters at the execution said. At one point his left arm jerked upwards against his restraints, but then his breathing became laboured and eventually stopped.

Martin Luther King III, Ms Kardashian-West, and others who had pleaded for clemency at the last minute had argued it was unjust to put a man to death for murder when he had not actually shot and killed the officers.

Others of his supporters said Spencer was the only person actually involved and Woods had received an unfair trial back in 2005.

“’He is actually innocent,” Woods’ sister, Pamela Woods, had told reporters outside the prison earlier. “Kerry Spencer the actual shooter has stated many times that he did it on his own with no help from anyone.”

But family members of the victims had no pity for Woods. A statement by the sister of one of the police officers gunned down in 2004 said: “Nathaniel Woods chose his fate on June 17, 2004. That horrific day could have been prevented if he had any kind of compassion or respect for law enforcement.”

Greg Owen, the son of another one of the victims, said his father had devoted his life to protecting those in his hometown. “Instead of going home that day, he was ambushed, murdered and died on the floor of a filthy drug house,” he said.