The 3rd Execution of 2024
Willie James Pye, a Georgia man convicted of the killing of his former girlfriend three decades ago was put to death on March 20, 2024 in the state’s first execution in more than four years, report The Associated Press.
Pye, 59, received an injection of the
sedative pentobarbital and was pronounced dead at 11:03 p.m. at the state
prison in Jackson. He was sentenced to die for his conviction in the November
1993 abduction, rape and shooting death of Alicia Lynn Yarbrough.
Pye was asked by the warden whether he wanted to say
any final words, and he indicated no. When asked if he wanted a prayer said for
him, he indicated that he would. A member of the clergy then said a brief
prayer, asking God to help Pye experience some grace and mercy.
Pye was mostly still as the drugs began to flow. He
began exhaling rapid bursts of air about a half-dozen times, causing his cheeks
to expand and his lips to quiver each time. Then, he was still. Several minutes
later, the warden walked into the death chamber and announced the time of
death.
Pye’s lawyers filed late appeals urging the U.S.
Supreme Court to step in, but the justices unanimously rejected to stop the
execution. The defense team argued the state hadn’t met necessary conditions
for resuming executions after the COVID-19 pandemic and reiterated arguments
that Pye was ineligible for execution because of an intellectual disability.
State responses argued the claims had been previously settled by the courts and
were without merit. The last execution in Georgia was conducted in January 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic gained
force.
Pye had been in
an on-and-off romantic relationship with Yarbrough, but at the time she was
killed, she was living with another man. Pye, Chester Adams and a 15-year-old
had planned to rob that man and bought a handgun before heading to a party in a
nearby town, prosecutors have said.
The trio left the party around midnight and went to
the house where Yarbrough lived, finding her alone with her baby. They forced
their way into the house, stole a ring and necklace from Yarbrough, and forced
her to go with them, leaving the baby alone, prosecutors said.
The group drove to a motel, where they raped
Yarbrough and then left the motel with her in the car, prosecutors said. They
turned onto a dirt road and Pye ordered Yarbrough out of the car, made her lie
face down and shot her three times, according to court filings.
Yarbrough’s body was found on Nov. 17, 1993, a few
hours after she was killed. Pye, Adams and the teenager were quickly arrested.
Pye and Adams denied knowing anything about Yarbrough’s death, but the teenager
confessed and implicated the other two.
The teenager reached a plea agreement with
prosecutors and was the main witness at Pye’s trial. A jury in June 1996 found
Pye guilty of murder, kidnapping, armed robbery, rape and burglary, and
sentenced him to death.
Pye’s lawyers had argued in court filings that
prosecutors relied heavily on the teenager’s testimony but that he later gave
inconsistent statements. Such statements, as well as Pye’s testimony during
trial, indicate that Yarbrough left the home willingly and went to the motel to
trade sex for drugs, the lawyers said in court filings.
Lawyers representing Pye also wrote in previous
court filings that their client was raised in extreme poverty in a home without
indoor plumbing or enough food or clothing. His childhood was characterized by
neglect and abuse by family members who were often drunk, his lawyers wrote.
His lawyers also argued that Pye suffered from
frontal lobe brain damage, potentially caused by fetal alcohol syndrome, which
harmed his planning ability and impulse control.
Pye’s lawyers had long argued in courts that he
should be resentenced because his trial lawyer didn’t adequately prepare for
the sentencing phase of his trial. His legal team argued that the original
trial attorney failed to sufficiently investigate his “life, background,
physical and psychiatric health” to present mitigating evidence to the jury
during sentencing.
A federal judge rejected those claims, but a three-judge
panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Pye’s lawyers in
April 2021. Then the case was reheard by the full federal appeals court, which
overturned the panel ruling in October 2022.
Pye’s co-defendant Adams, now 55, pleaded guilty in
April 1997 to charges of malice murder, kidnapping with bodily injury, armed
robbery, rape and aggravated sodomy. He got five consecutive life prison
sentences and remains behind bars.
There have been 75 men and one woman executed in
Georgia since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976,
according to the Georgia Department of Corrections. Pye was the 54th inmate put
to death by lethal injection. There are presently 35 men and one woman under
death sentence in Georgia.
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