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Georgia execution chamber |
The state Attorney General’s Office will not be filing an appeal today to try and overturn a stay of execution granted Thursday to condemned killer Warren Hill, an office spokeswoman said.
As a result, Hill will not be executed at 7 p.m. tonight, a date set earlier this week by the Department of Corrections.
The AG’s office needed a transcript of this week’s hearings before Fulton County Superior Court Judge Gail Tusan before filing its appeal, but the transcript will not be ready until Monday, office spokeswoman Lauren Kane said.
Tusan had initially granted Hill a stay of execution early this week and extended it at the close of a hearing on Thursday. She said a new law that keeps secret the identities of those who make and supply Georgia’s lethal injection drugs may be unconstitutional.
The warrant ordering Hill’s execution expires on Saturday at noon. For this reason, state attorneys will have to go back to a state court judge to get a new warrant, which gives the state a one-week window to carry out the execution.
The state may also need to get a new supply of pentobarbital to carry out Hill’s execution if it cannot set another execution date in the coming weeks. Its current supply, which the Department of Corrections got from a compounding pharmacy, expires on Aug. 8, according to court records.
Source: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 19, 2013