Execution set for today, despite questionable defense


The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/03/08

Condemned double murderer Curtis Osborne made no special request for his last meal, telling prison officials he would eat the same thing the other inmates have on Wednesday.

If he is executed as scheduled at 7 p.m., Osborne's final feast will be a cheeseburger, potatoes, baked beans, slaw and a cookie.

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The state Board of Pardons and Paroles, which under the Georgia Constitution is the only entity that can commute a sentence, declined Osborne's plea for mercy Monday. With that decision made and all possible court challenges resolved, any successful last-minute maneuvering seems unlikely.

Osborne stands to be the second person Georgia has executed in a month and the fourth in the nation since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld lethal injection, used by the three-drug procedure Georgia and 36 other states.

Osborne was sentenced to die in Spalding County for the 1990 murders of Arthur Jones and Linda Lisa Seaborne. The prosecutor said at trial Osborne killed Jones because Osborne didn't want to give him the $400 he got for selling Jones' motorcycle. Seaborne was killed because she was there, authorities have said.

On Tuesday, high-powered people continued lobbying for Osborne, arguing his lawyer failed him at trial. The claims each repeated are that his defense attorney, the late Johnny Mostiler, was a racist and that was the reason he did not tell Osborne there was a plea offer for a life sentence and the reason he offered very little evidence that might lead the jury to sentence Osborne to life instead of death.

Former President Jimmy Carter and former Deputy U.S. Attorney General Larry Thompson wrote letters to the state Board of Pardons and Paroles as did former U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell — now senior counsel to the law firm that is representing Osborne at no charge. Former Georgia Supreme Court Justice Norman Fletcher also appealed to the board.

On Tuesday, William Sessions, a former federal judge and once the head of the FBI, also argued on Osborne's behalf in an opinion column in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

"Osborne admits that he is guilty of the murders for which he was sentenced to die, but that sentence has been permanently stained by the acute inadequacy of his counsel," Sessions wrote. "When a person accused of murder is failed by his or her attorney, our faith in the verdict — and in the criminal justice system itself — is shaken."

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