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High court refuses to block execution in Georgia

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has refused to grant a last-minute reprieve to a Georgia death row inmate who would be the first person executed in the United States since a botched lethal injection in Oklahoma seven weeks ago.

The justices turned down an appeal from Marcus Wellons, convicted in the 1989 rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl in suburban Atlanta.

Among his appeals was a challenge to the secretive process used by Georgia to obtain lethal injection drugs from unidentified, loosely regulated compounding pharmacies.

Wellons is one of three men scheduled to be executed in a 24-hour period starting Tuesday night.

No one has been executed in the U.S. since April 29.

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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