The Georgia Supreme Court granted a stay of execution to Ray “Jeff” Cromartie, who had been set to die tonight.
The stay is provisional and focuses on whether the execution order was properly filed earlier this month by in Thomas County Superior Court while the Supreme Court had jurisdiction over the case.
The court asked attorneys for the state and inmate to file briefs addressing the question by Monday morning.
The execution order in question said Cromartie was to be executed by next Wednesday, Nov. 6. But the Supreme Court’s ruling said the order “may be void.”
Cromartie had been set to be executed at 7 p.m. today by a lethal injection of pentobarbitol, but he was awaiting word on last-minute appeals, which is how the Supreme Court ended up with jurisdiction over the case.
The 52-year-old has been hoping for a court to order new DNA testing, which he said could prove it was actually his accomplice who killed store clerk Richard Slysz, 50, during a robbery attempt in April 1994.
Before granting the stay, the Supreme Court had shot down Cromartie’s appeal for the testing even as the victim’s daughter spoke out in favor of the measure. The court’s order to stay the execution only mentioned the procedural issue and did not signal any new openness to Cromartie’s requests.
If the execution order is thrown out, Thomas County authorities could issue a new order.
Shawn Nolan, one of Cromartie’s attorneys, renewed calls for DNA testing on Wednesday. “The public has a strong interest in allowing DNA testing because the execution of an innocent person would be the gravest miscarriage of justice.”
The question of who pulled the trigger at Junior Food Store in Thomasville, near the Florida border, has been in dispute for 25 years.
Cromartie says it was co-defendant Corey Clark; Clark testified that it was Cromartie.
Clark and getaway driver, Thad Lucas, both testified for the state, avoiding the death penalty and murder charges. They have been free from prison since the early 2000s.
Clark, who has been wanted for an alleged parole violation since 2015, couldn’t be reached for comment. Lucas said last week he still wasn’t sure who the shooter was, because he couldn’t see what happened from the car.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Staff, October 30, 2019
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde