Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell has signed the warrant authorizing the execution by lethal injection on March 17 of Russell Cox, 37, who has been on death row for eight years following his conviction for the 1996 slayings of Evelyn Heath Brown and her daughter, Tina, 17.

Cox had been scheduled to die in 1997, but that sentence was stayed pending a request to the Supreme Court to review his case. After the Supreme Court declined to hear the matter, Cox's case was reviewed under Pennsylvania's Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA), without any cause found for setting aside his execution.

Cox, who had resided in Philadelphia County, now is an inmate at the State Correctional Facility-Greene. The action by Rendell on Friday, Jan. 21, was the 31st death warrant he has signed since becoming Pennsylvania's governor.        —Donald H. Harrison