Georgia death row inmate gets last-minute stay, for now, while an execution in Texas is on track

The execution of a man who killed two real estate agents in Georgia was halted by a judge’s late-night decision, at least for now, while an execution in Texas of a man convicted of a rural triple murder was still expected to take place Wednesday.

This would be the fifth execution in Texas, while Georgia has yet to put anyone to death this year. The nation's busiest death chamber is in Florida, which accounted for more than half the 25 executions already carried out in the U.S. this year.

Stacey Humphreys, 53, was convicted of malice murder and other crimes in the 2003 killings of 33-year-old Cyndi Williams and 21-year-old Lori Brown in an Atlanta suburb. He had been scheduled to die by injection of the sedative pentobarbital at 7 p.m. EDT at the state prison near Jackson.

LeJames Norman, 40, was sentenced to death in the 2005 fatal shootings of Samuel Roberts, 24, Tiffani Peacock, 18, and Celso Lopez, 38, while looking for cocaine inside their home in Texas. He too is scheduled to die by injection of the same chemical at 6 p.m. CDT at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.

A judge halted Humphreys’ execution late Tuesday after his lawyers filed a petition seeking a resentencing under a new state law that allows victims of abuse to have their sentences reconsidered and reduced, if they can tie their crimes to abuse they suffered.

The state is appealing that ruling, which could keep the execution on track for Wednesday evening. If an appeals court rules before the scheduled execution time that Humphreys is not entitled to a hearing on his petition for a reduced sentence, the judge said he will consider lifting the stay so the execution can proceed.

An attempted robbery turned deadly

Norman believed there was cocaine in the house in Edna, a small, rural city about 100 miles (161 kilometers) southwest of Houston, and hoped to steal it alongside Ker’Sean Ramey, according to court records. But they never found any drugs and fatally shot three people in the home. Lopez was shot four times, including three in the back of his head. Peacock was shot twice in the head. Roberts was shot five times to the chest, neck and head.

Norman was arrested about five months after the killings while trying to cross back into the U.S. from Mexico. He pleaded guilty to capital murder, leaving a jury to decide his punishment.

Ramey was also convicted in the shootings and sentenced to death. His execution is set for next week.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Monday voted against commuting Norman’s sentence to a lesser penalty or recommending a 90-day reprieve of execution. After the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Monday denied a motion from Norman’s attorneys for a stay of execution based on claims regarding actions by the prosecution, his attorneys have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the decision.

In 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review Norman’s appeal raising questions about the competence of his trial attorneys.

Killings at a model home and allegations of a biased juror

The two women who Humphreys killed were working as real estate agents for a new subdivision in the Atlanta suburb of Powder Springs. He entered the sales office in a model home around midday on Nov. 3, 2003, and forced them to strip naked and give him their bank PINs before fatally shooting them, according to evidence presented at trial.

Humphreys withdrew more than $3,000 from the women's bank accounts, according to court filings. He told police after his arrest that he had recently taken out some high-interest payday loans and needed money for a payment on his truck.

Witnesses told police they saw a man fitting Humphreys’ description at the sales office and a vehicle in the parking lot that matched his black Dodge Durango. Police zeroed in on Humphreys and tried to question him at his Dunwoody home days later. He fled and was arrested in Wisconsin after leading police on a high-speed chase.

Humphreys weighs about 370 pounds (170 kilograms) and his lawyers say he has several health issues that make him feel like he’s suffocating and choking when lying on his back. To keep him from suffering “an excruciating death,” his lawyers sought modifications to the lethal injection process, and prison authorities agreed to elevate the gurney as much as possible and place blankets behind him to further elevate his upper body if his breathing becomes restricted.

In addition to the petition for a reduced sentence, Humphreys’ lawyers have argued that he should be resentenced because his death sentence was tainted by a biased juror who lied during jury selection and bullied other jurors into voting for a death sentence. Courts have repeatedly rejected those arguments for procedural reasons, though U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by the other two liberal justices, argued last year that the issue should be further explored rather than leaving it “caught in a web of procedural barriers.”

Additionally, Humphreys' lawyers have argued that it was not fair that his clemency application was heard by only four members of the five-person State Board of Pardons and Paroles. A judge had ordered one member of the board to recuse herself, agreeing with Humphreys’ legal team that there was a conflict of interest because she previously worked as a victim advocate with the Cobb County district attorney’s office and had worked with the victims in his case. The parole board on Tuesday denied clemency for Humphreys.

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