The U.S. Supreme Court, fresh off its decision that lethal injection is a constitutional method of execution, lifted reprieves Monday for three death-row inmates around the country, including a Texas man who had been waiting only a few feet from the death chamber last September when his life was temporarily spared.

Prosecutors in the Texas case and one each from Alabama and Mississippi were moving quickly to set new execution dates after a seven-month national hiatus.

Eight other death row inmates, including Samuel Crowe and Joseph Williams in Georgia, also lost their appeals Monday, but they had not been facing imminent execution.

Crowe, whose execution can now be scheduled fairly soon, was sentenced to death for killing Joseph Pala during a 1988 robbery at Wickes Lumber Co. in Douglasville. Crowe first shot Pala in the back and then beat him with a paint can and a crowbar before stealing $1,160 from the store, according to court records.

Williams, whose appeals are far from being exhausted, was condemned to die for killing Michael Deal inside the Chatham County Detention Center in 2001. Suspecting Dean had informed on him about an escape plot, Williams, with the help of other detainees, strangled Dean and tried to make his death look like a suicide. Williams had two prior murder convictions, according to court records.

Executions around the country had been on hold while the court considered whether Kentucky's lethal injection procedure, similarly used by other death penalty states, was unconstitutionally cruel. The justices rejected the Kentucky case last week in a 7-2 vote.

Monday's Texas ruling came in the case of Carlton Turner Jr., from suburban Dallas, who killed his parents and kept their bodies in the garage for three days until a foul smell led police to the house.

Lisa Smith, a Dallas County assistant district attorney who handles capital cases, said now his execution probably will be set for summer.

The court Monday also cleared the way for the executions of Thomas Arthur in Alabama and Earl Wesley Berry in Mississippi.

In the case of Berry, convicted of abducting and fatally beating and stomping a woman in November 1987, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood on Monday asked the state Supreme Court to set an execution date within 30 days.

Alabama Attorney General Troy King's office immediately requested a new execution date for Arthur, who was convicted of murdering a man whose wife paid him $10,000 for the crime.

Roughly three dozen states use three drugs in succession to put to sleep, paralyze and kill inmates. Critics unsuccessfully argued if the first drug is administered incorrectly or in an insufficient dosage, the inmate could suffer excruciating pain from the other two drugs. Because the second drug is paralytic, however, the prisoner would be unable to express discomfort, they contended.

Staff writer Bill Rankin contributed information on the Georgia cases.