15 January 2010 :
Vernon Lamont Smith has been executed. Smith, 37, black, was pronounced dead at 10:28 after Lucasville prison staff administered a fatal dose of thiopental sodium, a powerful anesthetic. He was the 2nd death-row inmate to be put to death with a single drug after Ohio switched from a 3-drug system in November. Smith converted to Islam and changed his name to Abdullah Sharif Kaazim Mahdi in prison. He was convicted of fatally shooting in 1993 Sohail Darwish, a 28-year-old convenience-store owner immigrant from Saudi Arabia. Smith becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Ohio and the34th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1999. Smith becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1189th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.(sources: Associated Press , Columbus Dispatch & Rick Halperin, 07/01/2010)
