Updated: February 3, 2016, 8:25 AM ET
Brandon Astor Jones, convicted of murder in the death of a convenience store manager in 1979, died by lethal injection at 12:46 AM ET Wednesday at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, according to Reuters.
The Georgia Department of Corrections said in a statement that he accepted a final prayer and recorded a final statement.
The execution was delayed for nearly six hours amid a flood of last-minute appeals by his attorneys. But the U.S. Supreme Court denied a request for a stay of execution.
Reports Reuters:
A federal district court overturned his death sentence in 1989 because a trial judge had allowed a Bible in the jury deliberation room, finding it could have improperly influenced jurors to base their decision on scripture instead of the law.
Another jury again sentenced Jones to death in 1997. Jones had continued to appeal the verdict, saying his trial lawyers failed to introduce evidence of his history of mental illness and childhood sexual abuse.
Jones, who declined to request a last meal, was to be offered instead the standard prison menu of chicken and rice, rutabagas, seasoned turnip greens, dry white beans, cornbread, bread pudding and fruit punch, according to the Georgia Department of Corrections.
SOURCE: Yahoo News
The state of Georgia will execute its oldest inmate convicted in connection with a murder in 1979.
Brandon Astor Jones, 72, found guilty in the death of a convenience store manager in an Atlanta suburb during a botched robbery, was set to be executed at 7 PM ET Tuesday.
Jones was scheduled to be put to death via lethal injection at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson. According to a report from Reuters, Jackson’s execution will be the fifth this year in the United States and the first of two executions for Georgia this month. Georgia’s execution follows Alabama, Florida and Texas, who all put inmates to death in December.
Jones, who has been appealing his death sentence over the years, was denied a stay by the Georgia Supreme Court today in a last-ditch effort.
Reuters writes:
Jones would be the second man executed in the shooting death of Roger Tackett, 35, inside a convenience store in June 1979, according to court testimony.
Jones was arrested inside the store, along with co-defendant Van Roosevelt Solomon, by a police officer who heard four gunshots, according to a Georgia Supreme Court case synopsis.
Jones later told another officer “there is a man in the back – hurt bad,” court records said. Police found a badly wounded Tackett in a locked storeroom.
Solomon, also convicted of murder, was executed in 1985. Jones has been appealing his death sentence for decades.
Reuters adds that Jones had a death sentence overturned by a federal district court in 1989 because of the presence of a Bible in the courtroom, which they ruled influenced the jury.
SOURCE: Reuters | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty | VIDEO CREDIT: Inform
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