The first criminal to be executed in Georgia in four years said nothing before his death, officials say.
Knewz.com has learned Willie Pye received a lethal injection late Wednesday night, March 20 at the state “Diagnostic Class Prison” in Jackson.
Pye, 59, was executed for murdering former lover Alicia Yarbrough in 1993. Prosecutors said Pye was upset because another man signed a birth certificate for a baby he had fathered.
“Pye did accept a final prayer and did not record a final statement,” a statement from the Georgia Board of Corrections obtained by USA Today said.
He also had a last meal of two cheeseburgers, two chicken sandwiches, French fries, two bags of plain potato chips and two lemon-lime sodas, the statement noted.
The Georgia state parole board denied Pye’s plea for clemency one day before his execution.
Pye’s attorneys made last-minute appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court to spare his life on several grounds, delaying the execution for four hours. One of them involved the COVID-19 pandemic.
CNN reports Georgia stopped executions when coronavirus spread, and Pye argued the state agreed to resume them only under certain conditions. The Georgia Attorney General’s office argued Pye was not part of the agreement.
Pye also argued his defense attorney was too busy to provide proper counsel. The lawyer was working with dozens of other indigent clients in Spaulding County, southeast of Atlanta, along with private practice.
All the activity meant Johnny Mostiler “effectively abandoned his post,” Pye claimed.
The abandonment argument worked for a while, as three judges on a federal appeals court vacated Pye’s death sentence in 2021 for deficient counsel during sentencing. But the entire appeals court overturned that ruling in 2022.
The Death Penalty Information Center added Mostiler showed “notorious racism” against Black clients. He died in 2000.
Another issue was Pye’s mental status. Defense attorneys said he has an IQ of 68, making him intellectually disabled and exempt from “cruel and unusual punishment.”
The National Institutes of Health website says the IQ disability bar is traditionally 70.
But the state maintained Pye’s team did not prove a disability beyond a reasonable doubt. Pye’s attorneys called that standard “insurmountable high.”
Pye’s petition for clemency also noted his background. He endured “profound poverty, neglect, constant violence and chaos in his family home,” it said, which meant “healthy development” practically impossible.
The American Civil Liberties Union also contended Georgia does not allow journalists to watch much of the execution process, which violates “freedom of press” requirements of the First Amendment.
In all the appeals, nothing was said about whether or not Pye killed Yarbrough. In fact, one prison chaplain reported Pye told him “he bears the responsibility for the crime.”
Prosecutors say Pye was one of three people convicted of murdering Yarbrough.
Pye started the incident by kicking in a door of a home, authorities said. Two of the men stole a ring and necklace from Yarbrough, then took her to a motel where she was raped.
Their next stop was a dirt road, where prosecutors say Pye forced Yarbrough to lie on her stomach. She was shot three times, perhaps with a gun Pye obtained off the street.
Prosecutors say a semen sample from Yarbrough’s found a DNA match for Pye.
Anthony Freeman, one of the other suspects, testified against Pye at his 1996 trial. Freeman and Chester Adams are serving life terms for their actions in the case.
Pye is the third criminal to be executed in the United States this year.
He follows Kenneth Smith in Alabama in January. Front Page Detectives reports that death fueled an international controversy about nitrogen gas executions.
Then Knewz.com covered the death of Ivan Cantu in Texas in late February.
The next scheduled criminal for execution is Michael Smith in Oklahoma on Thursday, April 4.
The post Georgia Death Row Inmate Did Not Record Final Statement Before Execution by Lethal Injection for 1993 Murder of Ex-Girlfriend appeared first on Knewz.
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Author: Richard Burkard
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