A convicted killer due to become the 1,000th prisoner to be executed in the US since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976 was reprieved last night when the governor of Virginia commuted his sentence to life in prison.
Robin Lovitt, 42, found guilty of fatally stabbing a pool hall worker with scissors during a botched robbery, had been due to die by lethal injection at the Greenville correctional centre in Virginia today.

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Candlelit vigils had been planned across the country to coincide with Lovitt’s execution, and churches in several states planned to toll their bells. But the planned protests were not purely symbolic. Lovitt has always maintained his innocence and defence lawyers argued that his life should be spared because a clerk prematurely destroyed the bloody scissors and other evidence to make room in a store cupboard, precluding DNA testing.

Full Story: Guardian.