Marcus Ray Johnson has been put to death, the fourth person Georgia has executed this year and the first of seven expected to come over the next weeks and months as issues of the state’s lethal injection drug have been resolved and death penalty cases complete the usual round of appeals.
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Marcus Ray Johnson is scheduled to die at 7 tonight at the state prison in Jackson.
Johnson was convicted of the 1994 slaying of Angela Sizemore in Albany, Ga., AJC.com reported.
Johnson’s lawyer, Brian Kammer, is seeking a new trial, citing insufficient evidence and the prosecutor’s use of unreliable eyewitnesses.
In addition to denying Johnson’s motion for a stay of execution, the Georgia Supreme Court denied his request to appeal a ruling made Wednesday by the Butts County Superior Court.
Sizemore and Johnson met at an Albany nightclub the night of March 23, 1994, and witnesses saw them kissing and drinking heavily.
State prison officials denied Johnson’s request to have a six-pack of beer as his last meal because alcohol is considered a contraband item. Had the death sentence been commuted, the Board of Pardons and Parole would have explained why, in writing.
Her body was found lying across the passenger seat of her vehicle the following morning by a man walking his dog. Johnson was to get the same one the other 78 death row inmates were to have – baked fish, slaw, cornbread, crisp drop cookies, dry mixed beans. cheese grits and fruit punch.
The day before he was scheduled to be executed in October 2011, it was stopped when his lawyers asked for new DNA testing on evidence.
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The only physical evidence linking Johnson to Sizemore supports his admission of consensual sex and her bloodied nose, Kammer argued.
