Oldest man in modern US history executed

An 83-year-old man convicted of a deadly 1989 serial bombing spree has been executed in Alabama becoming the oldest known person put to death in the modern era of United States capital punishment.

Walter Moody was put to death by lethal injection at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, the state's governor said on Thursday. It was the eighth execution this year in the United States.

Moody replaced John Nixon, who was 77 when put to death in December 2005 in Mississippi, as the oldest person executed since the USs Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which monitors US capital punishment.

Moody was convicted of mailing a bomb in 1989 that killed US Circuit Court Judge Robert Vance, 58, and another that killed Georgia civil rights attorney Robert Robinson.

Prosecutors have said Moody sent the bomb to the judge in anger over a 1972 bomb conviction that Moody felt derailed his career and sent another to the civil rights lawyer to confuse investigators.

The execution had been scheduled for 6pm (local time) Thursday but was delayed while the court considered final appeals.

Lawyers for Moody asked the Supreme Court to spare Moody's life based on his transfer from the federal court system to Alabama's but this application failed.