Georgia death row inmate loses bid to halt upcoming execution
Stacey Ian Humphreys, who sits on death row for the murder of two Cobb County real estate agents, can’t pause his execution over a pandemic-era memo that has shielded some capital inmates, a federal judge ruled this week.
The order, which was issued Wednesday night by U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May, paves the way for Georgia to execute Humphreys next week. His execution warrant was signed by a Cobb County judge on Dec. 1 and his execution has been scheduled for Dec. 17 at 7 p.m.
Defense attorneys argued Humphreys should be included in a group of death row inmates covered by a COVID-19 era agreement that prevents them from being executed, and that excluding him violates his constitutional due process and equal protection rights.
“There is no right more fundamental than the right to life,” Nathan Potek, Humphreys’ attorney, said during a hearing Wednesday morning.
But May found in Wednesday’s order that, because Humphreys had exhausted his appellate options and because he knew he wasn’t covered by the agreement, his constitutional rights weren’t at stake in the case.
“His interest in continuing to live is thus no longer fundamental,” Judge May wrote. “At most, Humphreys is being denied having extra time to prepare for his clemency hearing.”
The agreement in question was a deal between the Attorney General’s Office and a group of Georgia capital defense attorneys, put in place in 2021, that prevents the state from seeking executions against some death row inmates until the COVID-19 pandemic ended, with specific parameters as benchmarks for the pandemic’s conclusion that still haven’t been met.
In the deal, the state agreed that three conditions had to be met before executions could continue: The statewide judicial emergency in place at the time had to be lifted, normal visitation would resume at state prisons and the vaccine would be “readily available to all members of the public.”
The vaccine is not yet available to some populations, including babies, so the third condition has still not been met.
An injunction was issued halting the execution of Virgil Presnell, Georgia’s longest-serving death row prisoner, who was sentenced to death in 1976 and again in 1999 after his first sentence was overturned.
Since then, the agreement has been litigated extensively in Fulton County Superior Court and it’s now on appeal after Judge Shukura Ingram sided with a group of Georgia capital defense attorneys in their efforts to keep at least nine condemned men alive, saying the state agreed to halt most executions until vaccines were available to “all” members of the public, not “some.”
On Wednesday, Assistant Georgia Attorney General Sabrina Graham said the capital defense bar agreed to the conditions of the agreement, which limited it to certain death row inmates and not all of them.
“They are trying to rewrite history,” Graham said. “At the end of the day, they agreed to it.”
Humphreys’ attorneys also filed a request to modify his execution protocol due to health issues. In a complaint filed Tuesday, attorneys are asking for Humphreys to be allowed to stand or sit fully upright during the lethal injection process, due to him struggling to breathe when he is lying on his back.
If modifications are not made, Humphreys will “suffer an excruciating death,” attorneys wrote. In Georgia, death row inmates are strapped while laying on their back before lethal drugs begin to flow.
Graham said correction officials were working through ways to deal with the issue on Wednesday and will provide an update to the court. If needed, a hearing will be scheduled for Friday morning.
Next week, a clemency hearing in front of the Board of Pardons and Paroles has been scheduled for Tuesday, marking one of the last attempts for Humphreys’ life to be spared.
The board reviews the case files and other materials submitted before the hearing. At the conclusion of the hearing, board members are given a ballot to secretly cast their vote on whether or not to grant clemency. Once votes are tallied, parties will be notified of the result.
A unanimous decision is not needed, only a majority. The board has held six clemency hearings since October 2019, granting clemency only once to Jimmy Fletcher Meders, whose death sentence was commuted to life without parole in January 2020.
Last year, the board denied clemency to Willie James Pye, who was intellectually disabled. Pye was executed on March 20, 2024.
Humphreys has been on death row since 2007, when he was convicted in the 2003 killings of two Cobb County real estate agents — Lori Brown and Cynthia Williams. He shot and killed the two women at the model home sales office of the Oakwind Subdivision in west Cobb County.
If executed, Humphreys will become the first execution this year in Georgia and the 55th Georgia inmate to be put to death by lethal injections.
As a last meal, Humphreys has requested a barbecue beef brisket, pork ribs, bacon double cheeseburger, french fries, cole slaw, cornbread, buffalo wings, meat lovers pan pizza, vanilla ice cream and two lemon-lime sodas, according to the Georgia Department of Corrections.
Florida currently leads the country in executions this year, after the state executed Mark Allen Gerald via lethal injection on Tuesday, marking the state’s 18th execution this year, The Associated Press reported. Another execution has been scheduled in Florida for next week.
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