WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Two Supreme Court justices engaged in a late-night exchange of harsh words before the execution early Wednesday of a convicted Tennessee killer who had been sitting on death row for nearly three decades. Justices John Paul Stevens and Clarence Thomas disagreed over whether to grant a stay of execution for Cecil Johnson Jr. The stay eventually was denied, and about an hour later, at 2:34 a.m., Johnson was put to death by lethal injection at a Nashville, Tennessee, prison. The 53-year-old inmate had been convicted of murder in a 1980 shooting spree at a convenience store near the state capital. The victims included 12-year-old Bobby Bell Jr., son of the store owner, who was wounded. Two other men sitting in a nearby taxicab also were shot to death.
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John Paul Stevens, Clarence Thomas disagreed over whether to grant a stay of execution
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Stay was denied, Cecil Johnson Jr. was put to death by legal injection in Tennessee
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Stevens was concerned too much time elapsed between sentencing, scheduled execution
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Thomas: Inmate challenged conviction, sentence for nearly 29 years, which led to delay
"Johnson bears little, if any, responsibility for this delay," said @placeholder, who said procedural hurdles at the appellate stage for capital defendants created what he called "underlying evils of intolerable delay."