ATLANTA (AP) – The Latest on the execution of Georgia’s oldest death row inmate, who’s set to be put to death Tuesday (all times local):
12:40 p.m.
The Georgia Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from the state’s oldest death row inmate, who’s set to be executed Tuesday evening.
Seventy-two-year-old Brandon Astor Jones is scheduled to be put to death by injection of the barbiturate pentobarbital at 7 p.m. at the state prison in Jackson. He was convicted in the 1979 shooting death of a convenience store manager.
The Supreme Court ruled 5-2 to dismiss Jones’ claim that his execution would be unconstitutionally “cruel and unusual and “an arbitrary and disproportionately severe sentence.” The high court also denied Jones’ request for a stay of execution.
Justices Robert Benham and Carol Hunstein dissented.
Another man convicted in the killing, Van Roosevelt Solomon, was executed in the state’s electric chair in 1985.
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3 a.m.
Corrections officials in Georgia are preparing to execute the state’s oldest death row inmate.
Brandon Astor Jones, who’s 72, is scheduled to be put to death by injection of the barbiturate pentobarbital at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the state prison in Jackson. He was convicted in the 1979 shooting death of Cobb County convenience store manager Roger Tackett.
A federal judge in 1989 granted Jones a new sentencing hearing because jurors had improperly been allowed to bring a Bible into the deliberation room. He was resentenced to death in 1997.
Another man convicted in the killing, Van Roosevelt Solomon, was executed in the state’s electric chair in 1985.
Jones is the first death row inmate set for execution this year in Georgia. The state executed five inmates last year.