This year may be the final year of waiting for Georgia death row inmate Brandon Astor Jones, 72.
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Jones’ lawyers were attempting to have his death sentence commuted to life in prison; however, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles felt that there was no justifiable reason not to go forward with his execution.
Corrections officials in Georgia are preparing to execute the state’s oldest death row inmate. Astor was sentenced to death in 1979 for the murder of a convenience store owner in Cobb County.
The lawyers say that makes Jones’ death sentence excessive and, therefore, unconstitutional. About 1:45 a.m., a police officer, who had driven a stranded motorist to the store’s parking lot to use a pay phone, saw Tackett’s vehicle parked outside and all the lights on inside the store. He was executed in 1985. At the time of his conviction, a death sentence for a murder committed during a robbery at a business was rare, and it has become even more unusual recently, with none imposed in any such case in Georgia in the past 20 years, Jones’ lawyers argue in their filing with the state’s Supreme Court. When the officer entered the front of the store he heard several shots ring out.
The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles denied a clemency request on Monday night from Brandon Jones, meaning that the 72-year-old’s execution is still set for 7 pm on Tuesday.
Two. 38 caliber revolvers were also found near the body, and residue on the men’s hands indicated they had both fired a weapon or handled one that had recently been fired. “You have a defendant who was tried at a time when Georgia was systemically providing substandard representation and the representation was especially poor for indigent black defendants, and it was a time in which there were significant racial disparities in death sentencing based upon the race of the defendant and the race of the victim”. The cash drawer had been removed and wrapped in plastic. A federal judge in February 1989 ordered a new sentencing hearing because jurors had improperly been allowed to bring a Bible into the deliberation room.
Jones is black, as was Solomon. Jones has been appealing his death sentence for decades.
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Jones would be the fifth person executed in the United States this year.
