The last execution now scheduled to take place in the United States this year was set for Thursday evening in Georgia, where the state prepared to execute a man convicted of raping and murdering a woman in 1994.
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Johnson’s attorney asked the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute Johnson’s death sentence or delay his execution for 90 days to allow for additional DNA testing that could exonerate his client.
Johnson was declared dead at 10: 11 p.m. local time at the state prison in Jackson, Georgia Department of Corrections officials said, according to the Associated Press (AP).
Johnson was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Angela Sizemore, who he had met at a west Albany bar named Fundamentals, in the early hours of March 24, 1994. The board, as is its custom, did not give a reason for its denial. His lawyers have appealed to the state Supreme Court. The Georgia Supreme Court Thursday upheld the ruling and ordered for his execution.
A man walking his dog later that morning found Sizemore’s body inside her SUV behind an apartment complex. Instead, Johnson settled for the same meal served to the rest of the inmates at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison about 50 miles south of Atlanta: baked fish, cheese grits, dry mixed beans, cole slaw, cornbread, crisp drop cookies and fruit punch.
Johnson is accused of stabbing an Albany woman 41 times with a small, tiresome knife.
Claims that important forensic evidence remained to be tested were not enough to stop the next scheduled execution in Georgia. The bar owner and its security officer, who both knew Johnson, testified they had seen Johnson and Sizemore kissing and behaving amorously.
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All of the arguments Johnson’s defense team has raised have been heard and rejected by courts, he said.
