Last Tuesday, Thomas Provenzano lay strapped to a gurney in a Florida prison connected to lethal chemicals through needles in his arms. He was about to be executed for killing a bailiff in 1984 but at the last minute an appeals court stopped the execution.
Provenzano, who claimed he was Jesus Christ, was taken back to his cell but on Wednesday he was back on the gurney after the court lifted the stay of execution. This time the lethal chemicals flowed into his body and he was pronounced dead at 7 p.m.
On Thursday night in Texas, after 19 years on death row, Gary Graham, had to be carried struggling to execution in Huntsville prison. The son of the murdered man watched. Up to the end Graham proclaimed his innocence of the murder in 1981.
The details of how the US puts its criminals to death in increasing numbers are often grisly but supporters point out that it was usually far worse for the victims.
While there is growing unease in the US about the use of the death penalty and the likelihood of some innocent persons getting executed, Americans are strongly in favour of a life for a life where murder is concerned. The number is falling, however. The Gallup polls show that 66 per cent favour the death penalty now, falling from 80 per cent in 1994. But the annual rate of executions is steadily increasing since they resumed in 1977. Last year 98 prisoners were executed. There are 3,600 awaiting execution.
Recent events have raised questions about how many of the condemned should be on death row. Governor George Ryan of Illinois, a pro-death penalty Republican, announced a moratorium on executions last January when he discovered that since 1977, 13 men on death row had to be released when new evidence emerged to clear them. During that period, 12 men had been executed. A number of other states are considering a similar moratorium.
Earlier this month, a study by a team of academic lawyers of death sentences between 1973 and 1995 showed that 68 per cent of those that were appealed revealed serious errors in the trial process. Of those whose death sentences were overturned on appeal, 82 per cent received lesser sentences and another seven per cent were found to be innocent. Only five per cent of the 5,760 death sentences in the period studied have been carried out.
The main errors in the murder trials were found to be incompetent defence lawyers and suppression of evidence by prosecutors.
Supporters of the death penalty argue that the study shows that the appeals process works, as shown by the very small number of condemned who are actually executed. But others are shocked at the results of the study, which took nine years. Prof James Liebmann of Columbia University, who led the study, said it shows that the present system is "catastrophic".
It should be pointed out that critics of the study argue that its findings are skewed because, early in the period, large numbers of death sentences were invalidated when the Supreme Court struck down faulty trial procedures.
This being an election year, the death sentence controversy is becoming politicised, although both Governor Bush and the Vice-President, Mr Al Gore, support capital punishment, as does President Clinton, who interrupted his campaign in 1992 to preside over the execution of a mentally defective prisoner, Ricky Rector.
For Mr Bush, there is the danger that his enthusiasm for the death penalty could be seen as too zealous. Texas leads the country for executions, and Mr Bush has presided over 135 since becoming governor in 1995.
Under Texas law, Mr Bush can act only on the recommendation of the Board of Pardons and Paroles, which he himself appointed. Mr Bush has expressed complete confidence that no innocent person has ever been executed in his term. But this week a poll showed that 57 per cent in Texas believe someone has been executed by mistake. Yet 73 per cent strongly support capital punishment.
The New York Times, which opposes the death penalty, says that "it defies common sense to conclude that Texas, a state with a notoriously weak public defender system, could conduct such a huge number of rapid executions without a single mistake".
So there is a tolerance for some errors in the system, even as more sophisticated DNA testing is clearing increasing numbers of persons convicted of serious crimes. Even Mr Gore has conceded that "there are always going to be some small number of errors" in the present death penalty system but this does not stop him from supporting it.
The Times comments: "Mr Gore and Mr Bush present themselves as leaders driven by moral principles. But by any moral standard, there can be no margin for error when the state takes human life."