TEXAS (USA): MAN EXECUTED FOR 1998 MURDER OF TEENAGER

February 15, 2011: A 31-year-old man who kidnapped and murdered a teenage girl in 1998 was executed exactly 13 years after the crime, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said.
The lethal injection execution of Michael Wayne Hall was carried out at the prison in the town of Huntsville after the US Supreme Court refused to stop it.
Robert Neville, Hall's accomplice in the slaying of 19-year-old Amy Robinson, was executed in February 2006.
Hall's execution was the first this year in Texas, the leading US state for executions, including 24 in 2010.
On February 15, 1998, Hall and Neville saw the teenager riding her bicycle to work. They offered to drive her but instead drove to a rural spot outside Fort Worth.
The men shot Robinson several times, with a rifle and pellet gun, and left her to die.
Several days later, they returned to the scene, shot the teenager's corpse, and stole money from her pockets.
They were arrested while trying to flee to Mexico.
Hall's lawyers argued that he had mental impairments that should exclude him from the death penalty. But prosecutors said Hall was merely lazy and in a state of depression. (Sources: Afp, 15/02/2011)