ATLANTA (AP) – Lawyers for a Georgia inmate set to be executed this this week argue his life should be spared, writing in a clemency application Tuesday that their client has shown great remorse and was manipulated into killing a fellow Navy sailor.
Travis Hittson, 45, is set to receive an injection of the barbiturate pentobarbital at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Georgia’s state prison in Jackson. He was convicted in February 1993 of malice murder in the slaying of Conway Utterbeck when the two were Navy crewmen stationed in Pensacola, Florida.
“The community of men who served alongside both Mr. Hittson and Conway Utterbeck in the Navy believe that Travis Hittson is deserving of mercy, as do others, including jurors who were charged with determining Mr. Hittson’s punishment,” his lawyers wrote in requesting clemency.
The State Board of Pardons and Paroles, the only entity in Georgia authorized to commute a death sentence, scheduled a clemency hearing Tuesday morning. Such hearings are closed to the public and media.
Hittson had a rough childhood and developed a drinking problem early on, his lawyers wrote. He was a kind person but had trouble fitting in and constantly sought to win the approval of others, they added in the petition.