JACKSON, Ga. (AP) — A Georgia inmate executed for a 1996 shotgun slaying twitched briefly as the lethal injection flowed into his body and groaned, "It burns, man."

Robert Earl Butts Jr., 40, was declared dead by a prison warden at 9:58 p.m. Friday after the compounded barbiturate pentobarbital was injected into his body. Prison officials said he had declined to take a sedative.

Strapped to a gurney with his arms out to his sides, Butts kept his eyes closed throughout the procedure. A tube that delivers the killing drugs through a wall appeared to pulse soon after the warden left the death cha...