Alabama killer will receive lethal injection in May

MONTGOMERY, Alabama - Alabama Governor Kay Ivey has set the date for the execution by lethal injection of Jamie Mills for May 30.

Last week, the Alabama Supreme Court authorized the governor to set an execution date.

Mills, 50 was convicted of capital murder for the 2004 slaying of Floyd and Vera Hill in Guin, a city of some 2,000 people in Marion County, in northwestern Alabama.

Mills and his wife went to the couple's home where he beat the couple and stole US$140 and medications, prosecutors said.

Mills' lawyers said that while they pursue a pending claim of prosecutorial misconduct in the case, the Alabama Supreme Court should deny the execution date request.

In a March petition, they wrote to a Marion County judge that prosecutors concealed that they had a plea deal with Mills' wife that spared her from a possible death sentence. She was the key prosecution witness against Mills at his trial.

The attorney general's office disputed that there was a pretrial agreement.

After carrying out the nation's first execution by nitrogen gas earlier this year, Alabama said it plans to put Mills to death by lethal injection.

Three-three U.S. states have abolished capital punishment.