Georgia Supreme Court denies killer’s appeal

The Georgia Supreme Court declined Tuesday afternoon to halt the execution of condemned killer Robert Newland, who is scheduled to be put to death Tuesday night by lethal injection.

The state high court voted 6-1 to turn down Newland’s last-minute appeal, leaving the U.S. Supreme Court as Newland’s final option to avoid execution. Justice Robert Benham dissented.

The state Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemency Monday to Newland, who was sentenced to death in 1987 by a jury in coastal Glynn County.

Newland, a drywall finisher, was convicted of murdering a neighbor in 1986 after she spurned his sexual advances.

After a night of heavy drinking, Newland approached 27-year-old Carol Sanders Beatty, a former amateur diving champion who lived across the street, and tried to kiss her. When she resisted, slapping and scratching him, Newland slashed her throat and stabbed her in the stomach.

Beatty died a little more than 20 hours later.

Newland has declined a special last meal request and instead will be offered the prison’s meal tray, consisting of chicken and rice, carrots, seasoned collard greens, lima beans, hot rolls, bread pudding and iced tea.

Jack Alderman, executed last September for the 1974 killing of his wife, was the last Georgia inmate to be put to death. There are 107 men and one woman on Georgia’s death row.