This undated photo released by the Georgia Department of Corrections, shows death row inmate Kenneth Fults. ATLANTA – The State Board of Pardons and Paroles on Monday declined to grant clemency for a Georgia death row inmate scheduled to die this week.
Kenneth Fults, 47, is set to be put to death at 7 p.m. Tuesday by injection of the barbiturate pentobarbital at the state prison in Jackson. Fults pleaded guilty in 1997 to killing 19-year-old Cathy Bounds in January 1996, and a jury sentenced him to die.
The parole board on Monday held a clemency hearing for Fults that wasn’t open to the public or the media. As is its custom, the parole board did not give a reason for denying clemency, saying only that its members considered the facts and circumstances in the case. The parole board is the only entity that can commute a death sentence in Georgia.
In a clemency petition submitted to the parole board, Fults’ lawyers detailed a childhood characterized by neglect and abuse at the hands of heavy-drinking family members and his mother’s string of violent boyfriends.
“Throughout his life, Kenneth Fults was abandoned and rejected by those who were supposed to care for him, ridiculed and dismissed by those who could have helped him, and beaten up and down by family members and strangers alike,” his lawyers wrote.