SUPREME COURT NOTEBOOK

Court refuses to block GA execution WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to grant a last-minute reprieve to a Georgia death row inmate who would be the first person executed in the United States since a botched lethal injection in Oklahoma seven weeks ago. The justices turned down an appeal from Marcus Wellons, convicted in the 1989 rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl in suburban Atlanta. Among his appeals was a challenge to the secretive process used by Georgia to obtain lethal injection drugs from unidentified, loosely regulated compounding pharmacies. Wellons is one of three men scheduled to be executed in a 24-hour period starting Tuesday night. No one has been executed in the U.S. since April 29. Published: Thu, Jun 19, 2014