ATLANTA (AP) – Lawyers for a Georgia inmate with an execution date looming are asking a judge to let a jury determine whether the man is ineligible for execution because of intellectual disability.
John Wayne Conner, 60, is scheduled to be put to death July 14 at the state prison in Jackson. He was convicted of beating his friend J.T. White to death 34 years ago during an argument after a night of drinking and marijuana use.
Conner’s lawyers argued in recent court filings that evidence they’ve presented in federal court proves that he is intellectually disabled and that his intellectual disability developed at an early age. They also assert that Butts County Superior Court Judge William Fears should reconsider arguments that Conner’s trial lawyer was ineffective.
Executing Conner now, who has spent 34 years on death row, would also be unconstitutionally cruel and unusual, his lawyers argued. They said it would amount to double jeopardy, or punishing him twice for the same crime.
Conner’s lawyers asked the judge to stay the execution to give him and the Georgia Supreme Court more time to examine the complex issues involved.