KENNESAW, Ga. — A Georgia choose on Monday ordered a short lived pause to a December execution that was already placed on maintain, saying questions concerning the state’s clemency course of have to be addressed earlier than Stacey Humphreys ‘ demise sentence may very well be carried out.
Humphreys, 52, was dealing with scheduled execution Dec. 17 however the process was paused simply days earlier than he was to have obtained a deadly injection.
He was convicted of malice homicide and different crimes within the 2003 taking pictures deaths of Cyndi Williams, 33, and Lori Brown, 21, at the true property workplace the place they labored in Cobb County, northwest of Atlanta.
At concern: Humphreys’ attorneys contend that two members of Georgia’s parole board have conflicts of curiosity which might taint their participation in a clemency listening to.
Humphreys’ attorneys earlier this month filed a petition asking a choose to order the 2 members of the parole board to recuse themselves from contemplating his clemency petition.
The attorneys mentioned a kind of board members, Kimberly McCoy, was beforehand a sufferer advocate with the Cobb County district legal professional’s workplace on the time of Humphreys’ trial and was assigned to work with victims within the case.
One other board member, Wayne Bennett, was the sheriff in Glynn County, the place the trial was moved due to pretrial publicity. Humphreys’ attorneys say Bennett oversaw safety for the jurors and Humphreys himself throughout the case.
In an order filed Monday, Fulton County Superior Courtroom Choose Robert McBurney wrote that “urgent ‘pause’ on the execution equipment till we reply the non-frivolous query raised by Petitioner regarding the correct composition of the Board for his clemency listening to is the right plan of action.”
He ordered attorneys for each side to file extra authorized briefs on the problem by Jan. 19.
Moreover, the choose wrote in his order that Humphreys deserves to have the battle of curiosity query researched and argued completely so {that a} parole board freed from conflicts of curiosity can resolve his case at a clemency listening to.
