COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - The Ohio Supreme Court has set two new execution dates even as the state continues to rework its procedures for putting condemned inmates to death by injection.

The court on Wednesday set a May 13 execution date for Michael Beuke, convicted of the 1983 murder of a man he met while hitchhiking on Interstate 275 in southwest Ohio.

The court set a June 10 execution date for Richard Nields, sentenced to die for the 1997 murder of his girlfriend in Finneytown in southwest Ohio.

The execution dates are the first in four and a half months set by the court, which had been scheduling executions about once a month.

The death penalty is temporarily on hold in Ohio while the state develops the new policies.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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