Georgia parole board suspends death row inmates execution after last-minute clemency application

A convicted murderer who was scheduled to be executed in Georgia this week had his date with death suspended after the state announced Monday that it was considering a new clemency application.Stacey Humphreys, 52, was preparing to be put to death by lethal injection Wednesday, when the state Board of Pardons and Paroles said it was ordering the suspension of his execution following an 11th-hour petition.Filed by the nonprofit Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, the petition, which received more than 1,400 signatures, highlights “profound irregularities that occurred inside the jury room” during Humphreys’ trial.“The Board has the unique authority to correct what the courts could not: a death sentence that emerged only after a coerced breakdown of deliberations, not through a lawful or unanimous jury decision,” it read.The jury deadlocked 11-1 in favor of life without parole for Humphreys, but bent under one juror’s refusal “to consider anything but death,” the group claims.They also alleged that the stubborn juror “misrepresented her background during jury selection and used her personal history to pressure others into voting for death.”If a jury reaches a deadlock during deliberations, under Georgia law they are required to notify the judge and declare a mistrial, according to the Southern Judicial Circuit of Georgia.The nonprofit argued in death penalty cases, state law would impose a mandatory life sentence if the jury deadlocked, but claimed “the court coerced further deliberations until death was imposed” in Humphreys’ case.“We also ask the Board to fully consider the extensive mitigating evidence presented at trial, Mr.

Humphrey’s lifelong trauma and abuse, and his consistent expressions of remorse.Clemency in this case is not an act of leniency, but an act of justice: a necessary step to restore the sentence the jury intended and to prevent the execution of a man whose death verdict was never legitimately reached,...