21 April 2006 :

Willie Brown Jr., a man convicted of killing a woman during a convenience store robbery in 1983 was executed by lethal injection.
Brown, 61, was pronounced dead at 2:11 am, said Keith Acree, a spokesman for the state Department of Correction.
Gov. Mike Easley rejected Brown's clemency request on April 20 and the US Supreme Court and a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., also ruled against him.
Brown was sentenced to death for the slaying of Vallerie Ann Roberson Dixon. He received an additional 40-year sentence for armed robbery.
Brown's attorneys argued the death penalty is unnecessarily cruel because he might remain conscious and suffer pain while being put to death by injection.
Brown's attorneys argued before the high court that Brown was poorly represented by his trial lawyer and that the judge gave erroneous instructions to the jury.
41 executions have taken place in North Carolina since the US reintroduced the death penalty in 1976. Currently the state has 190 people on death row.