WASHINGTON, April 25, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - A 55-year-old man was put to death Thursday in the southern US state of Alabama, after asking to be executed himself for the rape and murder of a woman in 2010.

James Osgood was killed via lethal injection at a prison in Atmore, the Alabama Department of Corrections said in a press release.

Osgood had been convicted of raping, stabbing and killing Tracy Lynn Brown, 44, with the help of his girlfriend, according to a report in USA Today.

The girlfriend, who was related to Brown, is serving a life sentence for the crime, the newspaper reported.

The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), a nonprofit advocacy organization opposing the death penalty, said in a statement that Osgood himself had given up appealing his death sentence and had asked in a letter for his life to be ended.

EJI asserted Osgood was denied a fair trial and that the courts ignored several mitigating circumstances, such as Osgood's prior admittance to a psych ward and attempted suicide, as well as trauma from sexual abuse, malnutrition and abandonment by his parents at birth.

The organization also published a photo of Osgood showing a dent in his head caused by a baseball bat.

The United States has carried out 14 executions since the beginning of this year: 10 by lethal injection; two by firing squad; and two using nitrogen gas, which has been denounced by the United Nations and experts as cruel and inhumane.

The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others -- California, Oregon and Pennsylvania -- have moratoriums in place.