RALEIGH - Convicted killer Willie Brown Jr. was executed about 2 a.m. Friday for the 1983 slaying of a Williamston convenience store clerk.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal by Brown's attorneys that the state's lethal injection procedures put him at risk for a painful execution. Not long after, Gov. Mike Easley denied clemency.

The state uses a three-drug cocktail to execute death row inmates: one drug to put them to sleep, a second to paralyze them and a third to stop their hearts.

Citing eyewitness accounts and toxicology evidence, Brown's attorneys argued that there was a possibility that inmates were not fully sedated before the second and third drugs were injected and therefore could be awake to experience agonizing deaths.

Without comment Thursday afternoon, two federal appeals court judges on the three-judge panel affirmed U.S. District Court Judge Malcolm J. Howard's ruling that the state had proposed adequate measures to ensure Brown would be unconscious before the final two drugs were injected.

Brown was sentenced to death for the 1983 killing of Vallerie Ann Roberson Dixon, a clerk at the Zip Mart in Williamston. Dixon was taken from the store and found the same day as the robbery lying facedown along a logging road after being shot six times.

Brown, who maintained his innocence, was convicted of murder and armed robbery.

For his last meal, Brown ate a well-done T-bone steak, rice, four rolls with butter and a piece of German chocolate cake.