US carries out executions in Texas, Ohio, Louisiana

Jan 8, 2010, 5:44 GMT

Washington - A convicted killer of a police officer was among the first death row inmates to be executed this year in the United States, media reports said.

Kenneth Mosley, 51, was executed Thursday by lethal injection in a prison in Huntsville, Texas. He had been convicted of having gunned down a police officer during an attempted robbery in 1997.

The Texas parole board this week denied Mosley's pleas for clemency. His execution had been delayed twice last year because of appeals and technical issues, the Houston Chronicle reported.

In 2008, 24 executions were carried out in Texas, a number that represented nearly half of the 52 executions carried out across the United States that year.

A few hours before Mosley's death, Ohio executed Vernon Smith, 37, using a new one-drug lethal injection, CNN reported.

Smith was on death row for killing a store owner during a 1993 robbery.

The state of Louisiana carried out its first execution since 2002 on Thursday. Geral Bordelon, 47, was found guilty of having raped and murdered his 12-year-old stepdaughter in 2002.

He was executed by lethal injection at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola.