Georgia plans to put to death a man in the state's first execution in more than 4 years
A Georgia man convicted of killing his former girlfriend 30 years ago is due to be put to death Wednesday in the state’s first execution in over four years.
ATLANTA — A Georgia man convicted of killing his former girlfriend three decades ago is scheduled to be put to death Wednesday in what would be the state’s first execution in more than four years.
Willie James Pye, 59, was convicted of murder and other crimes in the November 1993 killing of Alicia Lynn Yarbrough. The planned lethal injection using the sedative pentobarbital is set to happen at 7 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.
The failures of the local justice system had the effect of “turning accused defendants into convicted felons with all the efficiency of Henry Ford’s assembly line,” Pye’s defense lawyers wrote in their clemency application.
“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.
Rating: 5