World Bulletin / News Desk

Tommy Arthur was executed late Thursday after his eighth, and final, rendezvous with the US state of Alabama's capital punishment system.

Arthur's death ends a legal saga spanning more than three decades in which he became known by some as the Houdini of death row, managing to evade his final sentence seven times.

He was first sentenced to death back in 1983 for a murder he denies committing. Since then, the southern US state has executed 58 people -- an end Arthur had until now dodged.

"Thomas Arthur's protracted attempt to escape justice is finally at an end," Alabama's Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement released following the execution. 

In last-minute appeals Arthur's lawyers had challenged the injection method to be used on Thursday and asked that a cellphone be put in the death chamber in the event that something went awry -- requests the nation's highest court denied.

In her dissenting opinion Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted the risks of the lethal injection protocols, writing: "When Thomas Arthur enters the execution chamber tonight, he will leave his constitutional rights at the door."

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