In a 5-2 decision, the Georgia Supreme Court rejected an appeal by John Wayne Conner, who is scheduled to be put to death Thursday evening by injection of the barbiturate pentobarbital at the state prison in Jackson. Georgia is preparing to break its own record for the most executions in a calendar year since the death penalty was reinstated 40 years ago.
Advertisement
John Wayne Conner, 60, was put to death for beating a friend to death during an argument after a night of partying in January 1982.
Only five states have carried out death sentences this year, bringing the total number of executions carried out in the U.S. this year to 15.
Georgia on Friday executed its sixth inmate this year, the most in any calendar year in the state since the death penalty was reinstated four decades ago.
Conner was convicted of fatally beating J.T. White after a drink-and-drug-fueled night in January 1982.
While Conner’s execution was the sixth in 2016, he was also the ninth inmate put to death by the state since September 30, the most in a 12-month period since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has denied clemency for an inmate scheduled to be executed later this week. That court found he was not intellectually disabled but “did not consider the mitigating impact of Mr. Conner’s poverty-, violence-, and trauma-filled family background and whether such evidence should have justified a sentence less than death”, his lawyers wrote. Soon afterward, Conner and White left the home on foot in an attempt to get more whisky.
Conner’s father, lawyers argued, frequently beat, cut and shot at children the household – including Conner – during alcohol- and drug-induced rages.
While walking back to Conner’s house, Conner claims, White made a comment about wanting to have sex with Conner’s girlfriend.
After returning home, Conner told his girlfriend he may have killed White but that they needed to go back and make sure. As a result, Conner “fell into the pattern modeled by those in his family”, his lawyers wrote in a clemency application. The board did not give a reason for denying clemency, which is customary. According to court documents, Conner, who was 25 at the time, went to a party with friends, where he drank and smoked pot. White’s body was found the next day in a ditch near an elementary school.
Advertisement
Conner’s violent upbringing and mental impairments do not excuse what he did, but the board should consider that those details could have persuaded a jury or trial court to spare his life if they had been presented, his lawyers argued. Before they left town, Conner told his girlfriend he had to be sure and walked to a drainage ditch.
