DeYoung's Execution Delayed by Day

Andrew Grant DeYoung in 1995

Northeast Cobb killer Andrew Grant DeYoung received an extra 24 hours of life when the state postponed his execution Wednesday.

DeYoung had been due to die by injection at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson. But amid last-minute court activity at the state and federal level, Department of Corrections officials announced around 10 p.m. that the execution was delayed until 7 p.m. Thursday, the Marietta Daily Journal, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and WABE-FM reported.

Each of those media outlets had a reporter in Jackson to witness the execution.

Attorney General Sam Olens did not disclose why the execution was postponed.

But Olens did say the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision not to stop the execution didn’t come until two hours after the scheduled lethal injection, the MDJ reported.

The Georgia Supreme Court voted 4-3 not to stay the execution, the AJC reported, and the state justices also decided to uphold a Fulton County judge’s order that DeYoung’s death be videotaped.

The videotaping order came at the request of another death-row prisoner. At issue is whether Georgia’s new mix of drugs in its lethal injection allows a person to suffer pain before dying.

It’s not clear whether the videotaping order contributed to the delay, but it’s something new for the state prison. The Associated Press reported that DeYoung’s execution would be the first videotaped in the United States since a California execution in 1992. That tape was destroyed.

DeYoung had a final meal of pizza, breadsticks, all-fruit strawberry preserves, Concord grape juice and vanilla ice cream Wednesday afternoon. That last meal will not be repeated today, the MDJ reported.

DeYoung is being executed for the 1993 murders of his parents and younger sister at their Northeast Cobb home when he was a 19-year-old college student.

Source: NortheastCobbPatch, July 21, 2011