- An execution scheduled for March 20 in Georgia marks the state’s first in more than four years.
- Georgia halted executions in 2020 due to the pandemic, despite ongoing court proceedings.
- Negotiations between death row lawyers and the attorney general’s office led to an agreement in April 2021, outlining conditions for resuming executions.
An execution scheduled for next week would be the first in Georgia in more than four years. The state is trying to move past an agreement made amid the coronavirus pandemic that effectively halted lethal injections.
Willie James Pye, 59, is set to be put to death March 20. He was convicted of murder and other crimes in the November 1993 killing of his former girlfriend, Alicia Lynn Yarbrough.
Georgia last carried out an execution in January 2020. In April 2021, the state attorney general’s office entered into an agreement with attorneys for death row prisoners to suspend executions for a certain group of prisoners and to establish conditions under which they could resume.
EXECUTION SET FOR GEORGIA MAN WHO KIDNAPPED, RAPED AND MURDERED EX-GIRLFRIEND
Here’s a look at why it’s been more than four years since Georgia has carried out an execution.
GEORGIA’S HISTORY OF EXECUTIONS
After the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, Georgia resumed executions in 1983. The four-year break in executions caused by the coronavirus pandemic and related agreement was the longest pause since then. From 2010 to 2020, the state executed 30 people, including nine in 2016 and five in 2015.
Unlike some other states, Georgia hasn’t had problems obtaining the drug it uses for lethal injections. Prison officials have said they get the sedative pentobarbital from a compounding pharmacy whose identity is shielded by state law.
HOW THE PAUSE CAME ABOUT
Executions in Georgia stopped in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic. But court proceedings continued, meaning people on death row continued to become eligible for execution as they exhausted…
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