TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - The Florida Supreme Court is refusing to block the February 26 execution of a drug trafficker who was convicted of killing a state trooper with a pipe bomb.

The justices on Tuesday unanimously denied a post-conviction appeal and request for a stay of execution from Paul Augustus Howell.

He was convicted of killing Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Jimmy Fulford in February 1992.

Fulford had stopped a car carrying the bomb, hidden inside a gift-wrapped microwave oven, on Interstate 10 east of Tallahassee.

Authorities said the bomb was being delivered to two women in Marianna with the intent of killing them because they knew too much about a South Florida drug ring.

The bomb exploded when Fulford opened the package.

Howell is expected to appeal in the federal courts.