ATLANTA (AP) – An execution scheduled for Thursday would be the sixth in Georgia this year – the most executions carried out by the state in a calendar year since the death penalty was reinstated four decades ago.
John Wayne Conner, 60, is scheduled to die by injection of pentobarbital at the state prison in Jackson. He was convicted of beating friend to death 34 years ago during an argument after a night of drinking and marijuana use.
Georgia has executed five people in a calendar year twice – last year and in 1987 – since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Conner would be the sixth in Georgia this year and would also be the ninth inmate put to death by the state since Sept. 30, the most in a 12-month period since the death penalty was reinstated. The state’s previous record for a 12-month period was set when seven inmates were put to death between October 2001 and August 2002.
Only five states have carried out death sentences this year for a total of 14. Aside from the five already put to death in Georgia, six inmates have been executed in Texas and one each in Alabama, Florida and Missouri.
Conner spent the evening of January 9, 1982, drinking and smoking at a party with his girlfriend and other friends, including J.T. White. They then returned to the home Conner shared with his girlfriend in Milan, about 150 miles southeast of Atlanta.