Death row inmate may jump transplant queue

A death row prisoner in Oregon who has kidney disease could receive a transplant ahead of thousands of other patients because the operation would save the state money.

Horacio Reyes-Camarena was found guilty of stabbing an 18-year-old woman to death in 1996. His appeal could take another decade.

Reyes-Camarena's dialysis at the Two Rivers correctional institution costs $120,000 (£73,000) a year, so a transplant, at $100,000, would represent a saving for a state facing a budget crisis.

"If they offer it to me, I'll take it but I never want to ask for a kidney," he told Reuters. "I'm on death row now. Someday, if it got allowed, I'm going to go through appeals and then the man [executioner] has to do his job. Why take it with me?"

He added: "I know people on the outside. They need things and they don't get it. Sometimes being here is better."

The health of prisoners on death row has long been the subject of public debate. Many death row inmates are elderly because the appeal process takes so long, and need expensive treatment.

There are 57,000 Americans on the kidney transplant waiting list.