Missouri has set for early Wednesday the execution of an eighth death-row inmate, the most for any U.S. state in 2014.
The state plans to use a little-tested drug cocktail that was deployed in three recent and controversial lethal injections.
Earl Ringo, a 40-year-old African American sentenced to death for a 1998 murder during an armed robbery at the restaurant where he worked, is due to be executed at 12:01 am (05:01 GMT) in Bonne Terre.
Death penalty opponents allege that the three lengthy recent executions -- which have left the inmates suffering for over an hour at times instead of 10 minutes -- amount to a form of torture or the "cruel and unusual" punishment forbidden by the U.S. Constitution.
U.S. courts have rejected several appeals by death-row inmates concerned by the procedure, amid predictions that the debate will likely eventually have to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Eighteen U.S. states have abolished the death penalty, but 32 others -- and the federal government -- maintain the practice, and polls suggest it retains majority support among the U.S. public.
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