NewzATLANTA (AP) — Georgia prison officials plan to execute a man next month who was convicted of fatally shooting two real estate agents in Atlanta’s suburbs more than two decades ago. Stacey Humphreys, 53, was convicted of malice murder in the 2003 killings of 33-year-old Cyndi Williams and 21-year-old Lori Brown. He is set to receive a lethal injection at the state prison near Jackson at 7 p.m.
16, according to the Department of Corrections. Humphreys would be the first person executed in Georgia this year. The death penalty in the state has largely been tied up in litigation over an agreement related to the coronavirus pandemic that defense lawyers contend temporarily shields many death row residents from execution.
The last execution in the state was in March 2024. Humphreys was previously scheduled to die last December, but the execution was halted after his lawyers filed a petition asking a judge to order two members of the State Board of Pardons and Paroles to recuse themselves from hearing his clemency petition. Humphreys’ lawyers argued that the two parole board members had conflicts of interest because they had played roles during his trial.
Kimberly McCoy, one of the board members, was a victim advocate with the Cobb County district attorney’s office at the time of Humphreys’ trial and was assigned to work with the victims in the case. The other, Wayne Bennett, was the sheriff in Glynn County, where the trial was moved because of pretrial publicity, and Humphreys’ lawyers argued he oversaw security for the jurors and Humphreys himself during the case. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney put the execution on hold while he considered the case.
He ruled in March that McCoy must recuse herself because of a “material conflict of interest,” but found that Bennett had very little recollection of the trial and did not have a conflict. McBurney also denied a request from Humphreys’ lawyers to order the governor to appoint a substitute member of the parole board so that their client’s case can be heard by a full five-member board and to order the board to stay his clemency hearing until that has happened. McBurney found that was up to the governor and the board but wrote that they “will no doubt be guided by the finality of the death penalty and the firm tradition of (if not the right to) a five-member deliberative panel in determining…
16, according to the Department of Corrections.Humphreys would be the first person executed in Georgia this year. The last execution in the state was in March 2024.Humphreys was previously scheduled to die last December, but the execution was halted after his lawyers filed a petition asking a judge to order two members of the State Board of Pardons and Paroles to recuse themselves from hearing his clemency petition.
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