State set for second execution in a month

Georgia is set to go through with its second execution in a month. Curtis Osborne is scheduled to die tonight for a double murder committed in 1990. On Monday, the state Board of Pardons and Paroles ruled that Osborne should not be granted clemency. Osborne, who is black, has claimed he was sentenced to death because his defense attorney was racist. This scheduled execution comes less than a month after Georgia put William Earl Lynd to death.

State moving fast to resume executions

Georgia, which became the nation's first to hold an execution after the Supreme Court upheld lethal injections, is now attempting its third in just a month.

Meanwhile, only two other states - Mississippi and Virginia - have put inmates to death.

The moves come after a seven-month nationwide halt on executions while the court considered the constitutionality of the method.

That's about to change. Texas, which has led the nation in executions since the 1970s, has 14 scheduled into the fall. And eight other states have set execution dates before the summer's end, according to Capital Defense Weekly, a Web site for death penalty lawyers.

Why was Georgia so quick out of the box?

Experts say Georgia has a shorter waiting period - a maximum of just 29 days - than some other states to move forward with an execution once a death warrant is signed. Once the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in April that the three-drug lethal injection method used by most states was constitutional, Georgia was able to move with almost no delay.

And there were already several cases in the pipeline when the high court took up the lethal
injection challenge. The backlog was created in part because Georgia held only one execution between 2006 and 2007.

"In some ways, it's the luck of the draw," said Georgia Department of Corrections spokesman Paul Czachowski.

William Earl Lynd's execution on May 6 was the first in the nation after the April Supreme Court ruling. He was convicted of killing his live-in girlfriend in Berrien County two decades ago.

Samuel David Crowe was scheduled to die on May 22 but had his sentence commuted to life in prison without parole just hours before he was to be put to death.

The state is set to move forward with its third execution on Wednesday for Curtis Osborne, for killing a Spalding County couple in 1990.

Bill Hoffmann, an attorney representing Osborne, said he can't fault the state for its aggressive strategy.

"We had a stay awaiting the decision, and now it's been lifted," he said. "The state's gotta do what the state's got to do."

Still, Sara Totonchi of the Southern Center for Human Rights, said she's been surprised by the fast early pace Georgia has set.

"Why the rush?" she asked. "Is this really an area where Georgia wants to be leading the nation?"

Prosecutors dispute that the state is moving quickly at all, noting that Lynd, Crowe and Osborne have each been on death row for almost two decades.

"What rush? Just look at how old these cases are," said Rick Malone, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia.

There's no denying that politics also plays a role in the scheduling of death penalty cases, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Washington D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment.

He said "informal slowdowns" take place in states where politicians are less enthusiastic about capital punishment, while cases move more quickly in states where influential leaders are in favor of the death penalty.

"I would say the political shifts in Georgia favor executions and so you are seeing that," he said.

Even if more executions are scheduled in Georgia this year it's unlikely the state will surpass the record of 23 conducted in 1935, when the Georgia's death row was using the electric chair.

Four executions were performed in both 2001 and 2002. That's the highest number since the state adopted lethal injection as its method of execution in October 2001.

Click here for more GPB News coverage of the issue of capital punishment.

(The Associated Press)

State Attorney General calls for 2nd execution this month

Another Georgia man has been slated to be executed this month. The state Attorney General has issued an order for Samuel David Crowe to be executed May 22nd. Crowe was sentenced to death in Douglas County in 1989 following his conviction on robbery and murder charges in the killing of his former boss. If the execution of Crowe proceeds, it would be the second in Georgia since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld that lethal injection is constitutional. Earlier this week, William Earl Lynd was executed.

Georgia man dies by lethal injection

A Georgia man became the first in the country to die by lethal injection after the United States Supreme Court upheld that method of execution.

The prison warden asked William Earl Lynd if he wanted to pray or make a final statement. He declined. Shortly after the warden read the order of execution and began the lethal injection process.

With a nurse by his side Lynd lay strapped to a gurney, his arms outstretched and supported by two boards, an IV in each arm. It took him close to 20 minutes to be declared dead.

Lynd was separated from the witnesses by a large window. Observers included the brother of his victim. In 1988 Lynd was convicted and sentenced to die for the murder of his girlfriend, Virginia Moore.

He is the 18th person to die by lethal injection in Georgia.

Georgia Execution

The State Board of Pardons and Paroles has denied convicted killer, William Earl Lynd's request for clemency. His attorney's immediately filed an appeal with the Georgia State Supreme Court seeking to stay his execution.
If the court denies his request he is scheduled to die by lethal injection tomorrow night at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson. He will be the first person put to death since the U.S. Supreme court decided that lethal injection does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
Kentucky inmates challenged the lethal injection protocol several months ago. Many states, including Georgia, delayed scheduled executions. Georgia uses the same three drug combination as Kentucky.
In 1988 Lynd was sentenced to death for killing his girlfriend, Virginia Moore. He will be the 18th inmate in Georgia put to death by lethal injection. The state currently has 109 men and 1 woman

on death row.

Death row inmate to ask for hearing

Lawyers for convicted killer William Earl Lynd will ask the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles today to spare Lynd’s life. He is scheduled to be executed tomorrow night. Lynd has been in prison almost two decades, serving time for the killing of his girlfriend three days before Christmas in 1988. Lynd could become the first condemned prisoner in the country to die by lethal injection since September--that’s when the U.S . Supreme Court considered arguments that challenged lethal injection in a Kentucky case.

First execution of year scheduled

The first execution in Georgia in nearly a year has been scheduled. William Earl Lynd is scheduled to die at 7PM May 6th. Lynd was convicted of killing his girlfriend in 1988. Executions were placed on hold in Georgia, and elsewhere in the country, as the U.S. Supreme Court weighed whether lethal injection violated the Constitution. The high court ruled last week it does not.