Execution is 1,000th U.S. lethal injection

LUCASVILLE, Ohio (AP) — A man who went on a 1992 Christmas holiday killing spree that left six people dead, including an 18-year-old mother gunned down at a pay phone, was executed Tuesday, the state’s second execution in two weeks and the 1,000th lethal injection in the U.S. since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

Marvallous Keene, 36, who was convicted in five of the murders, chose not to file a late appeal over his death sentence.

He died by lethal injection at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville — seven days after Ohio’s last execution. It was the fastest turnaround since the state executed two inmates in six days in 2004.

Ohio has put 31 men to death since it reinstated the death penalty in 1999. The state has one execution scheduled per month through February 2010.

According to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., Keene’s was the 1,171st execution — and the 1,000th by lethal injection — since the U.S. reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

The European Union presidency in Sweden released a statement noting the number and calling on the U.S. to halt executions, pending the abolition of the death penalty.