South Dakota executes man after US Supreme Court rejects appeal

&Tab;&Tab;<div class&equals;"wpcnt">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<div class&equals;"wpa">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<span class&equals;"wpa-about">Advertisements<&sol;span>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<div class&equals;"u top&lowbar;amp">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<amp-ad width&equals;"300" height&equals;"265"&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab; type&equals;"pubmine"&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab; data-siteid&equals;"111265417"&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab; data-section&equals;"1">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;amp-ad>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;div>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;div>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;div><p>A man who fatally stabbed a former co-worker who interrupted him during a 1992 burglary has been executed in South Dakota&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Charles Russell Rhines died by lethal injection at the state prison in Sioux Falls at 7&period;39pm local time &lpar;1&period;39am Tuesday Irish time&rpar;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Rhines had brushed off a plea for mercy from 22-year-old Donnivan Schaeffer in the slaying at a Rapid City doughnut shop&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Rhines was supposed to be executed at 1&period;30pm&comma; but the state delayed the execution until the US Supreme Court denied three appeals from Rhines on Monday evening&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Rhines&comma; who was 63 years old&comma; last week unsuccessfully challenged the drug the state used in the execution&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>He argued the drug&comma; pentobarbital&comma; is not the &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;ultra-short-acting” drug he was entitled to&comma; but a circuit judge ruled it acts as fast or faster than other drugs Rhines cited when used in lethal doses&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The state Supreme Court rejected Rhines’ appeal of that ruling on Monday&comma; and his attorneys promptly appealed to the US Supreme Court&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Pentobarbital is used by a handful of states in executions&comma; including Georgia&comma; Missouri and Texas&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Rhines had also asked the US Supreme Court to block his execution on two other grounds&period; He argued that the jury that sentenced him to death had an anti-gay bias&comma; a claim the court previously declined to hear&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>He also argued that the state has denied him access to experts to examine him for cognitive and psychiatric impairments&semi; the state argued that he was examined by mental health experts and found competent&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Mr  Schaeffer was delivering supplies to Dig &OpenCurlyQuote;Em Donuts where he worked when Rhines ambushed him&comma; stabbing him in the stomach&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Bleeding from his wound&comma; Mr  Schaeffer begged to be taken to a hospital&comma; vowing to keep silent about the crime&semi; instead&comma; he was forced into a storeroom&comma; tied up and stabbed to death&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Steve Allender&comma; a Rapid City police detective at the time of the killing who is now the city’s mayor&comma; said Rhines’s jury sentenced him to death partly because of Rhines’s &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;chilling laughter” as he described Mr  Schaeffer’s death spasms&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;I watched the jury as they listened to the confession of Charles Rhines on audiotape and their reaction to his confession was appropriate&period; Any human being would be repulsed by the things he said and the way he said them&comma;”<&sol;em> Mr  Allender said&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Rhines attended Mr  Schaeffer’s funeral&comma; then moved to Seattle a few days later&period; Authorities thought the move was odd because Rhines had vowed to never return to Washington state&comma; where he had spent time in prison&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Mr Allender said authorities initially interviewed Rhines and felt something was off&comma; but Rhines was not arrested until four months later – after Rhines told his former roommate about the killing&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Rhines wrote to the Argus Leader newspaper in May 2013&comma; saying that when he saw a grieving mother on the news in an unrelated case&comma; he realised what he had done to Mr  Schaeffer’s mother&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Just at the cusp of her beloved child becoming an independent person&comma; a responsible adult with a family and friends surrounding him and his mother waiting expectantly for grandchildren to spoil&comma; having all that snatched away for almost no reason at all and the hole it has had to have left in her heart&comma;”<&sol;em> he wrote&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Prosecutors talk of closure&comma; but that wound will never close&comma; no matter how long it is there&period;”<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Peggy Schaeffer&comma; Donnivan’s mother&comma; rejected the words as insincere&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In June&comma; when a judge scheduled the execution&comma; Ms Schaeffer told reporters&comma; <em>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;This step was one big one for justice for Donnivan&period; It’s just time&period;”<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In the afternoon&comma; about 30 protesters gathered in snow flurries outside the state prison where Rhines was to be executed&comma; praying and singing hymns&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Denny Davis&comma; director of South Dakotans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty&comma; said they accept Rhines’s execution but hope to steer public opinion against capital punishment&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;It is about a culture shift and changing the values of people&comma;<&sol;em>” he said&period; <em>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Why would we want to put this person to death when society is already safe&quest;”<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<div style&equals;"padding-bottom&colon;15px&semi;" class&equals;"wordads-tag" data-slot-type&equals;"belowpost">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<div id&equals;"atatags-dynamic-belowpost-68e25154d2f2d">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<script type&equals;"text&sol;javascript">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;window&period;getAdSnippetCallback &equals; function &lpar;&rpar; &lbrace;&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;if &lpar; false &equals;&equals;&equals; &lpar; window&period;isWatlV1 &quest;&quest; false &rpar; &rpar; &lbrace;&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&sol;&sol; Use Aditude scripts&period;&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;window&period;tudeMappings &equals; window&period;tudeMappings &vert;&vert; &lbrack;&rsqb;&semi;&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;window&period;tudeMappings&period;push&lpar; 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