The execution of a man sentenced to death for killing an 8-year-old girl and raping her friend of 10 years after kidnapping them while they were returning from the school in Cobb County, outside of Atlanta, in 1976, was temporarily suspended
The Judge of the Superior Court of the Fulton County Shermela Williams issued an order temporarily barring the state from proceeding with the execution of 19-year-old Virgil Delano Presnell Jr.
The attorneys for the state indicated that they would appeal the judge’s decision so that the execution could proceed as planned.
The State Board of Pardons and Paroles, the only authority in Georgia that can commute a death sentence, refused Monday to stop Presnell’s execution.
According to AP, the lawsuit filed on behalf of the Federal Defenders Program, which represents Presnell, alleges that the settlement agreement It stated that, with one named exception, executions would not resume until six months after three conditions were met: the expiration of the state judicial deadline for COVID-10 . emergency, the resumption of normal visitation in state prisons, and the availability of a COVID vaccine “for all members of the public.”
The attorney general gave Presnell’s attorney, Monet Brewerton- Palmer only two days’ notice that they intended to set his execution date, the suit says. That left her with insufficient time to prepare for her clemency hearing on Monday, the suit says.
The clemency hearing Clemency lasted only an hour Monday morning and Brewerton-Palmer did not call any witnesses or experts to testify or present the dozens of witnesses it otherwise would have provided, Caplan said.
It is clear that Presnell, whom he allowed to intervene in the lawsuit, would suffer irreparable damage if the execution was not delayed, the judge said: “We cannot come back from the dead.”
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