The first execution in the state of Georgia in more than four years will take place tonight. Tuesday, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected clemency for Willie James Pye. Lawyers for the man argued that he should not be executed because he is intellectually disabled and feels remorse for killing a woman he had an on again, off again relationship with three decades ago.
Pye’s lawyers called the man’s trial “a shocking relic of the past” and cited racism and severe shortcomings in the Spalding County public defender system of the 1990s. Georgia’s last execution was in January 2020. The state is trying to move past an agreement made amid the COVID-19 pandemic that effectively halted lethal injections at the time.
