COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A death-row inmate lost his chance Monday for clemency and a delay of his execution for strangling his mother-in-law and suffocating his 5-year-old stepdaughter while high on cocaine.The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati refused to postpone Tuesday's scheduled execution of John Hicks, 49. The request was Hicks' only pending appeal, but it was not immediately clear if his attorney would file any other motions.Hicks likely will be the 999th person executed since the United States reinstated the death penalty in 1977. The 1,000th execution is expected Wednesday in Virginia, of a man convicted of fatally stabbing a pool hall manager with a pair of scissors.Hicks was convicted of the aggravated murder of Maxine Armstrong, 56, and his stepdaughter Brandy Green in Armstrong's Cincinnati apartment in 1985. He was sentenced to die for the child's slaying.He strangled and robbed Armstrong so he could buy more drugs and later returned to kill Green when he realized she could identify him as the last person at the apartment.Hicks based his court request on the grounds that lethal injection can constitute cruel and unusual punishment.His attorney, Marc Mezibov, did not immediately return a message seeking comment on the ruling. Mezibov had said he wished that Gob. Bob Taft had more carefully considered the request for clemency."As difficult as the facts are in connection with Mr. Hicks' actions, there are nevertheless compelling and legitimate reasons why his life should be spared," Mezibov said.Hicks offered a tearful apology for the slaying in an early November interview before his clemency hearing but said he was under the control of cocaine and not fully aware of his actions.Mezibov described his client's addiction as a "cocaine psychosis" that led him to eliminate any barriers to his drug use.Taft could have changed the death sentence to life in prison. However, he cited the rulings throughout Hicks' appeals that found he had been given a fair trial and that there was overwhelming evidence of his guilt.Hicks arrived Monday at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville from Mansfield Correctional Institution, said Andrea Dean, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. No family members planned to witness the execution.For his special meal, Hicks requested two medium rib eye steaks, a baked potato, a chef salad, garlic bread, apple pie a la mode, potato chips, A-1 Steak Sauce and a Pepsi.Hicks would be the fourth person executed in Ohio this year and the 19th since the state resumed executions in 1999.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.