AUTHORITIES rejected an attempt by a convict — set to be executed in a high-profile case last night for killing a Georgia police officer — to show his innocence by taking a polygraph test.

The US Supreme Court gave a reprieve to a Georgia inmate less than two hours before he was to be executed for the 1989 killing of an off-duty police officer.

Barring a last-minute intervention by the courts, a man in the state of Georgia who killed his girlfriend is likely to become the first inmate put to death since a US Supreme Court review halted executions last September.