Georgia, state with most 2016 executions, executes first inmate of 2017
JACKSON, Ga. -- Georgia carried out its first execution of the year early Wednesday, putting to death a man convicted of killing a 73-year-old neighbor in 1992.
J.W. Ledford Jr., 45, was pronounced dead at 1:17 a.m. at the state prison in Jackson, more than six hours after his initial execution time. The delay was waiting for a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, which denied his request for a stay.
Georgia executed nine inmates last year, more than any other state and the most Georgia had executed in a single calendar year since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the death penalty to resume 40 years ago.
Ledford was convicted of murder in the January 1992 stabbing death of Dr. Harry Johnston in Murray County, in northwest Georgia.
He was originally scheduled to receive a lethal injection at 7 p.m. EDT Tuesday.
The State Board of Pardons and Paroles, the only authority in Georgia with the power to commute a death sentence, declined to spare Ledford's life. But authorities had to wait to hear from the nation's high court..
Ledford told police he had gone to Johnston's home on Jan. 31, 1992, to ask for a ride to the grocery store. After the older man accused him of stealing and smacked him, Ledford pulled out a knife and stabbed Johnston to death, according to court filings. The pathologist who did the autopsy said Johnston suffered "one continuous or two slices to the neck" and bled to death.
After dragging Johnston's body to another part of Johnston's property and covering it up, Ledford went to Johnston's house with a knife and demanded money from Johnston's wife, according to court filings. He took money and four guns from the home, tied up Johnston's wife and left in Johnston's truck. He was arrested later that day.
Ledford told police he had a number of beers and smoked a couple joints in the hours before the killing.
Ledford's lawyers had asked the parole board to spare him, citing a rough childhood, substance abuse from an early age and his intellectual disability. After a hearing Monday, the board declined to grant clemency. Following its normal practice, the board did not give a reason for its denial.
Because of changes in brain chemistry caused by a drug Ledford has been taking for chronic nerve pain for more than a decade, there was a high risk that the pentobarbital Georgia planned to use to execute him would not render him unconscious and devoid of sensation or feeling, his lawyers wrote in a federal lawsuit filed Thursday. That would violate the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment enshrined in the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the lawsuit said.
When challenging an execution method on those grounds, a U.S. Supreme Court precedent requires inmates to propose a known and available alternative. Ledford's lawyers, therefore, proposed that he be executed by firing squad, a method that is not allowed under Georgia law.
A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit, saying Ledford's attorneys had failed to show that execution by pentobarbital would be "sure or very likely" to cause him extreme pain as required by the U.S. Supreme Court precedent. U.S. District Judge Steve Jones also said the decision to wait until just a few days before his execution date to file the lawsuit suggested a stalling tactic.
Ledford's lawyers appealed to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and asked that court to temporarily halt the execution. A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit on Monday rejected that request. Ledford's attorneys have asked the full 11th Circuit to take up the case.
Ledford's lawyers had also asked a state court judge to halt the execution because he was only 20 and his brain wasn't done developing when he killed Johnston. Just as juvenile offenders are considered less culpable and not the "worst of the worst" for whom the death penalty is reserved, the execution of those under 21 is also unconstitutional, Ledford's lawyers argued.
A Butts County Superior Court judge rejected that petition, and Ledford's lawyers appealed to the state Supreme Court. The Georgia Supreme Court, later Tuesday, rejected the appeal of the lower court refusal to stop the execution.
Ledford requested an extensive last meal from jail house staffers. The request includes Filet Mignon wrapped in bacon with Pepper Jack cheese, large French fries, 10 chicken tenders, fried pork chops, a blooming onion, pecan pie with vanilla ice cream, sherbet and a Sprite, according to CBS affiliate WGCL-TV in Atlanta.