Death Penalty News

Despite being situated in the country’s death penalty belt, it might surprise Georgians to learn that the Peach State’s capital punishment system is increasingly falling into disuse. Georgia hasn’t executed a person since 2020, and the state’s death row sits at around 40 people — making up less than 1% of Georgia’s corrections population. Capital punishment abolitionists are eager to call “time of death” for Georgia’s death penalty, but not so fast. It seems likelier that it will lay in abeyance indefinitely before the current Legislature would consider repealing it. According to Gallup and Pew, solid majorities of Americans support the death penalty — although support has waned — and a whopping 77% of Republicans favor it.

Through a diplomatic representative, Pope Francis beseeched Gov. Mike Parson to halt the upcoming execution of Ernest Johnson.  The letter from Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio (a Vatican diplomat), said the pope asked Parson to consider Johnson’s “humanity and the sacredness of all human life” rather than the specifics of the case.  “Governor Parson, the State of Missouri has taken courageous stands in support of the dignity of life, even at its earliest and most vulnerable stage. For this we are very grateful,” Pierre said. “Now, to reject the application of the death penalty in the case of Mr. Johnson, would be an equally courageous recognition of the inalienable dignity of all human life.”  Johnson, convicted of killing three people during a convenience store robbery in 1994, had about one-fifth of his brain tissue removed in 2008 to treat a brain tumor. The tumor was not fully removed, and he suffers from epilepsy and “painful seizures,” his attorne...

Ten years ago this week, the state of Georgia executed Troy Davis despite substantial questions about his guilt and calls to spare his life from prominent world leaders including former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa. Though other controversial executions have been carried out since then, this was one of the first cases in the 21st century to get widespread attention over doubt about the conviction. Davis was convicted of murder in 1991 for the killing of off-duty Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail, who while working as a security guard at a Burger King restaurant was shot when he tried to defend a man being assaulted in a nearby parking lot. Seven of the nine witnesses who identified Davis as the shooter recanted their testimony, and Davis maintained his innocence to his last breath. His execution on Sept. 21, 2011, came after three previous scheduled executions that ended in stays, one just 90 minutes before the deadline...

Take a look back at everything that led to the fateful, controversial execution. Tuesday marked the 10-year point since the state of Georgia executed Troy Davis despite increasing suspicions of his innocence following his conviction for killing an off-duty police officer. Davis denied committing the murder throughout his prison sentence and up until he was literally on his deathbed when he sat up on the gurney to which he was strapped and looked the family of Savannah Police Officer Mark MacPhail in their eyes to repeat claims of his innocence in the 1989 killing. “I did not have a gun,” he told them before turning his attention to his soon-to-be executioners. “For those about to take my life,” Davis said to prison officials, “may God have mercy on your souls. May God bless your souls.” But according to the transcript from audio of Davis’ last moments alive, his final words were, “continue to fight this fight,” a message to his supporters and death penalty opponents who unsuccessfully ...

Marion Wilson was declared dead at 9:52 p.m. after being put to death tonight by lethal injection for a murder committed more than 2 decades ago. The execution was carried out shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the 42-year-old's final appeals. Wilson’s lawyers had asked the high court to halt the execution, and the court waited about 2 hours after the scheduled 7 p.m. execution to issue its decision.  The nation’s highest court often waits until well after that hour before deciding whether to intervene. After hearing of the high court’s denial, Wilson’s 23-year-old daughter, Tykecia, screamed, “I want my daddy, I want my daddy back!” A man picked her up as she wailed, carried her to a car and drove away. The Georgia Supreme Court refused to issue a stay of execution this afternoon, and the state Board of Pardons and Paroles declined to grant clemency to Wilson this morning. Wilson was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in Baldwi...

ON THE NIGHT of June 20, the United States will mark a grim milestone: the 1,500th execution since the return of the death penalty in 1976. Forty-two-year-old Marion Wilson Jr. is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Thursday at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson. A clemency hearing will take place in Atlanta beforehand, but the execution will almost certainly proceed. The Georgia Department of Corrections announced Wilson’s last meal last week: thin-crust pizza, chicken wings, and ice cream. If there’s nothing inherently significant about the number 1,500, it is at least a moment for reflection. The 1,000th execution in the U.S. took place  amid candlelight vigils in North Carolina in 2005. Cameron Todd Willingham had been executed in Texas the previous year, for a crime many now recognize he did not commit. Then-President George W. Bush — who himself oversaw 152 executions in Texas — took the occasion to laud the death penalty, with no sense o...

Georgia's death chamber Georgia inmate J.W. Ledford Jr. used his final moments to quote from the movie "Cool Hand Luke" and toss out an insult. "What we have here is a failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. So that's why we have here what we have here today. I am not the failure. You are the failure to communicate," Ledford said just after 1 a.m. on May 17, before a lethal dose of the barbiturate pentobarbital began to flow into his veins. "You can kiss my white trash ass," he added. "I'm just shaking the bush boss, let's do it." It was one of the more unusual statements made by a Georgia death row inmate in the final moments. Strapped to a gurney that's tilted toward the witness seats, condemned inmates are given two minutes to make a last statement. Many apologize to the families of their victims or thank their own families, friends and lawyers for support. Others insist they are inno...

The death penalty is plagued with racial disparities. In states across the country, African Americans are disproportionately represented on death row and among those who have been executed. Black people make up 13 percent of the population, but they make up 42 percent of death row and 35 percent of those executed. [i] In addition, many studies have found the race of the victim to affect who receives the death penalty, with homicides of white victims more likely to result in the death penalty.[ii] Federal death row is no different. There are 62 people on federal death row, and 37 are people of color. Twenty-seven of these individuals are black.[iii] Several reviews of the federal death penalty have found troubling racial disparities in charging, plea bargaining, sentencing, and executions.[iv] For example, a review conducted by the United States Department of Justice found that 48 percent of White defendants were able to receive a sentence less than death through plea b...