Georgia completes its first execution in four years

As reported in this local article, “Georgia has executed its first prisoner in four years after the Supreme Court declined to intervene in the execution.” Here is more:

Willie James Pye, 59, was convicted of murder and other crimes in the November 1993 killing of Alicia Lynn Yarbrough. He is scheduled to be put to death Wednesday. The planned lethal injection using the sedative pentobarbital happened at 11:03 p.m. at the state prison in Jackson.

In their request for clemency, Pye’s lawyers called the 1996 trial “a shocking relic of the past” and said the local public defender system had severe shortcomings in the 1990s…. “Had defense counsel not abdicated his role, the jurors would have learned that Mr. Pye is intellectually disabled and has an IQ of 68,” they said, citing the findings of the state’s expert.

Defendants who are intellectually disabled are ineligible for execution. Experts said that Pye meets the criteria, but that the burden of proof in Georgia was too high to reach, his lawyers argued….

But the Georgia Parole Board rejected those arguments after a closed-door meeting on Tuesday, and denied Pye’s bid for clemency. Pye’s lawyers filed late appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court urging it to intervene, but the justices declined.