December 18, 1998. Copyright, 1998, Graphic News. All rights reserved

U.S. EXECUTES 500TH DEATH ROW INMATE
By Margot Nesdale

LONDON, December 18, Graphic News: CONVICTED killer Andrew Lavern Smith is likely to gain the dubious distinction of being the 500th prisoner to be executed in the U.S.
The death-row inmate is scheduled to receive a lethal injection in South Carolina later tonight. (Friday)
Unless he receives a last minute reprieve his death will mark the 500th execution since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
His predecessor Ð a man who stabbed his estranged wife 25 times with kitchen knives and a meat fork, was executed in Oklahoma yesterday morning. (Thursday)
John Wayne Duvall, aged 47, was convicted of the September 1986 murder of Karla Duvall, aged 30, at their home.
Prosecutors say Duvall admitted stabbing her during an argument and then finishing her off by suffocating her with a pillow.
Duvall was the 67th prisoner put to death in the U.S. this year and the 499th overall.
Earlier this week a convicted murderer told a Californian jury considering whether to recommend the death penalty that he had only one regret: that he didnÕt get to kill them too.
ÔI hate this government and the society that supports it. That means you,Õ David Wayne Arisman told the jury during his trial on Tuesday.
Arisman was convicted of murdering one of two deliverymen who interrupted his sexual assault on a 26-year-old woman in April 1997.
Meanwhile passionate debate continues over the injustices of capital punishment and corruption in the criminal justice system.
For every seven prisoners executed since 1976, one inmate has been freed from Death Row after subsequently being found innocent, a conference at Northwestern University Law School in Chicago revealed recently.
Most of the 75 freed were accused of heinous crimes for which prosecutors, who are elected officials, were under pressure to find a scapegoat.
Studies have consistently shown that blacks are more likely than whites to land death sentences for similar crimes; blacks who harm whites fare worst of all.
Most states put massive resources into prosecuting capital cases, but little into guaranteeing an adequate defence.
The American public has come out strongly in favour of capital punishment Ð the Death Penalty Information Centre has found that 77 percent of Americans favour it.
Unlike many industrialised countries, the trend is toward more and more executions, with about 3,500 people currently waiting on death row.
Texas heads the list. Of the 499 executions since 1976, 164 have been carried out in Texas, 59 in Virginia, 43 in Florida, 32 in Missouri and 24 in Louisiana.
/ENDS

Sources: Reuters, The Economist, Florida Corrections Commission