If the sentenced person isn't going to be harvested for body parts, the execution should take place within 6 months of the sentence. STOP THE DELAYS!!!!
If Earl Lynd's execution goes forward tonight as scheduled, Georgia will be the first state to put anyone to death in nearly eight months.
Five Augusta-area men are among the 106 men and one woman on Georgia's death row. Fifteen, including Mark McClain, who was sentenced in Richmond County Superior Court, are in the final appellate stage.
Mr. McClain is on death row for the November 1994 murder of 20-year-old Kevin Brown during a robbery. The federal appeals court in Atlanta is considering Mr. McClain's federal habeas petition, an appellate step that challenges the legality of his punishment. If it is denied, the only step left is to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to consider his case a final time.
Another man sentenced to death by a Richmond County Superior Court jury, Reinaldo Rivera, has insisted since his October 2000 arrest that he wants to die for his crime. He has changed his mind at least once, however.
Mr. Rivera was sentenced to die for murdering Army Sgt. Marni Glista, 21. He confessed to raping and killing three other women and trying to kill a fifth woman. Because Mr. Rivera refused to sign court documents last summer, he lost his first possible appellate round.
District Attorney Ashley Wright said Monday that Mr. Rivera can still file state and federal habeas petitions. Because he just lost the first round in March, no execution date would be immediately set, she said.
State Attorney General Assistant Russ Willard said Monday that it's too early to speculate how many executions will be set now that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that Kentucky's use of lethal injections did not violate the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. However, at least two other men on Georgia's death row -- Jack Alderman and Curtis Osborne -- have run out of appeals. Mr. Willard said his office asked the Georgia Supreme Court three weeks ago to lift those stays of execution.
At least one other Georgia man, Troy Davis, who was sentenced to death for the murder of an off-duty police officer, has exhausted his appeals.
Richard Dieter, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said Monday that 15 execution dates have been set since the April Supreme Court decision. Probably at least twice as many could be scheduled, but he said he doesn't anticipate a massive rush.
Executions are carried out by real people in what is a very intense situation, Mr. Dieter said. "If you do this every day, people get frazzled."
Before executions were halted, the last person executed in Georgia was John Hightower, on June 27, according to the state Department of Corrections report for 2007. Another death row inmate died of natural causes, and the sentence of a third was commuted to life.
Mr. Lynd, who murdered his girlfriend in 1988, lost a request for commutation from the State Board of Pardons and Paroles on Monday. He will die by lethal injection at 7 p.m. today if the Georgia Supreme Court denies his attorneys' request for permission to appeal his execution.
Reach Sandy Hodson at (706) 823-3226 or sandy.hodson@augustachronicle.com.
DEATH ROW LOCALS
A nearly eight-month de facto moratorium on executions ended last month when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Kentucky's use of lethal injection did not violate the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
In addition to Reinaldo Rivera and Mark McClain, three other Augusta-area men are under death sentences:
- Ernest Morrison has been on death row since 1987 for the rape and murder of Edna Griffin. His sentence was recently overturned by an appellate judge but could be reinstated by a higher court under appeal.
- Willie Palmer was twice sentenced to die for killing his estranged wife and teenage stepdaughter in September 1995. His first conviction was reversed, and he was retried, convicted and sentenced to death again in August.
- Robert Arrington is a relative newcomer to death row. He was sentenced to death in 2004 for the April 2001 murder of Kathy Hutchens in Augusta.
Comments
If the sentenced person isn't going to be harvested for body parts, the execution should take place within 6 months of the sentence. STOP THE DELAYS!!!!
YOU GO GIRL! Heck I think Texas has the best idea set up an express lane.
I agree with both of you, every state should have an express lane and a very short time between conviction and execution. It might be more of a deterrent to others and certainly a deterrent to the sentenced person.
It amuses me that the electric chair, hanging, firing squad and now lethal injuection have been reviewed as cruel and unusual punishment. Was it not cruel and unusual punishment that the victims suffered? I like the eye for an eye method; kill the convicted person in the same manner they killed their victims. Don't hide it. Either do it on t.v. or in the town square.
Public Beheadings on Pay per view. I volunteer to swing the sword.
peonynut, YOU have the right answer!!!
An article in the AJC said that after he killed his girl friend he drove up north and killed another woman with the same gun that killed his girl friend with. I guess all while he was still stoned. What a joke! I hope this evening @ 7:30pm he answers to a higher power for his unjust deeds while here on earth. I also hope the women get ring side seats to the event on his judement day. I hope Georgia will be 1st at something for a change.
We are the only democracy in the free world who still has the death penalty. If it is such a deterrent to crime, why hasn't it worked thus far? I don't believe that we as a christian nation have the right to execute anyone. However, I do think we have the right to incarcerate criminals. I further believe that prisons could & should be self sufficient. Prisoners could be trained to do certain jobs and be allowed to eat based upon what monies they generate. Don't work...don't eat. Work extra..get a hair cut & shave. The reward for excellent work...Heat & A.C.
14, it's probably because of all the legal BS, so these people sit on death rows for years trying to get out of being executed when most of the time that is what THEY are in there for, executing someone. And generally when you get the death penalty you have killed someone brutally. I don't think they should let this scum sit in prison getting fed 3 meals a day, at our expense!!! Like the Bible says, an eye for an eye!!
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