The state Board of Pardons and Paroles has declined to grant a stay of execution to Ray “Jeff” Cromartie, who is scheduled to die by lethal injection Wednesday for the 1994 murder of a South Georgia store clerk.
The denial clears the way for the execution to move forward unless the 52-year-old inmate succeeds in asking various courts to order new DNA testing. Cromartie has maintained his innocence in the shooting, claiming it was a co-defendant who pulled the trigger and killed Richard Slysz, 50. Cromartie’s attorneys asked the board to grant a stay to provide time for the DNA fight, but the board found it doesn’t have the authority to grant a stay for that purpose.
In a rare move, Cromartie declined to submit a formal request for clemency from the board because the request would require him to ask for his death sentence to be converted to life without parole.
“There is simply too much doubt in his case to ask for this sentence in good faith,” said Shawn Nolan, one of the inmate’s attorneys. “Georgia officials must agree to DNA testing in this case before it’s too late; otherwise, the state risks an unjust execution.”
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The question of who pulled the trigger at Junior Food Store in Thomasville, near the Florida border, has been in dispute for 25 years.
Cromartie says it was co-defendant Corey Clark. Clark testified that it was Cromartie.
Clark and getaway driver Thad Lucas both testified for the state, avoiding the death penalty and murder charges. They have been free from prison since the early 2000s. (Clark, who has been wanted for an alleged parole violation since 2015, couldn’t be reached for comment.)
Lucas said last week he still wasn’t sure who pulled the trigger because he was outside the store, in his car, when the shooting happened.
If killed, Cromartie would become the third inmate executed by the state of Georgia this year. The second, Marion Wilson, used his last words in June to proclaim his innocence in the murder of a Milledgeville man. Wilson said it was his co-defendant, executed in 2018, who shot Donovan Parks.
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