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By Andy Sullivan
RALEIGH, N.C., Dec 2 (Reuters) - As Kenneth Lee Boyd's death by lethal injection drew near late on Thursday, a man who spent six years with him on North Carolina's death row stood outside a Baptist church, clutching a candle against the biting wind.
"He was a praying man, always in the Bible," Alan Gell said of Boyd, who on Friday morning became the 1,000th inmate to be executed in the United States since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
Gell faced execution as well, for the 1995 murder of a retired truck driver. But he was freed in 2004 when a second jury found that prosecutors had withheld witness statements showing that he was in prison when the murder occurred.
Prosecutors also withheld a recording of the star witness, saying she had to "make up a story" about the murder, the jury found.
These problems with Gell's case prompted the North Carolina legislature to require prosecutors to share their entire file with defense attorneys before felony trials.
The legislature nearly passed a moratorium on capital punishment this year, but opted to let executions continue while a committee studies the issue.
So Boyd on Thursday prepared to be strapped to a gurney and injected with a lethal mix of chemicals.
And Gell, 31, marched with other death penalty opponents to the prison where he once awaited execution with Boyd.
"I think that it's bad that this state has to be the one to set the milestone when it's a state that's riddled with flaws in its justice system," he told Reuters.
(c) Reuters 2005.