Terrell was executed at a prison in Jackson, Georgia, nearly one hour from Atlanta.
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Brian Keith Terrell, the man convicted in the 1992 slaying of a 70-year-old Newton County man was executed early Wednesday morning by lethal injection at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson.
Terrell was convicted of the 1992 murder of John Watson, a friend of Terrell’s mother, the Atlanta Journal Constitution newspaper said.
Terrell stole checks belonging to Watson, a friend of his mother’s, but the older man said he would not press charges if Terrell paid him back. Watson confronted Terrell’s mother, who was his good friend, and said he would not press charges if Terrell returned most of the money within a couple days.
Terrell murdered Watson instead of returning the money.
The state’s Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected Terrell’s request for clemency on Monday, according to WTSP 10 News.
The statement from the Corrections Department said Terrell accepted a final prayer and refused to record a final statement.
The execution of Brian Keith Terrell, 47, takes to 28 the number of people put to death in the United States this year.
Terrell also had filed a court challenge saying the state can not ensure the safety or efficacy of the drug it planned to use to execute him. Terrell’s second trial resulted in a conviction and death sentence; however, the Georgia Supreme Court subsequently reversed the conviction due to an error in jury selection. A federal court on Tuesday rejected that challenge, and Terrell appealed to the 11th U.S. Court of Appeals. They argued that no physical evidence connected Terrell to the killing and that prosecutors had used false and misleading testimony to secure the conviction that drew the death penalty.
Capital punishment in the U.S. has been declining in recent times, with the variety of executions and new demise sentences more likely to hit lows not seen for greater than 20 years, in response to knowledge compiled by the non-revenue Death Penalty Information Center.
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Georgia’s attorneys said the pentobarbital was cloudy because it was stored at too low a temperature and that the state has executed two other inmates with the drug since then without incident. The state has taken precautions to prevent that from happening again and would not proceed with an execution if a problem with the drug was discovered, state lawyers have said.
