Man who murdered 3 still scheduled to die Wednesday

The State Board of Pardons and Paroles Board denied Lucas’ plea to stop his lethal injection for murdering Steven Moss and his children, 15-year-old Kristin and 11-year-old Bryan. The board heard arguments Tuesday for and against the execution. It did not explain its decision.

Lucas, 37, is scheduled to be the fifth person Georgia has put to death this year. He has asked that his last meal be Italian.

Since the death penalty was re-instated in the 1970s, there have been two years in which Georgia has executed five killers — 2015 and 1987. There is at least one other man who could see his lethal injection scheduled soon, which would make it six executions in 2016.

Stephen Bradley, district attorney for the Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit, said 12 people spoke to the Parole Board on Tuesday in favor of Lucas being executed. Their meeting lasted 90 minutes, with most attending in person and a few weighing in by phone.

Bradley declined to be specific about the arguments offered, but he said Gerri Ann Moss, the victims’ wife and mother, and other relatives described the “deep impact” of the murders, and how they struggled “to stop being scared.”

Lucas’ lawyers, meanwhile, declined to talk after meeting with the Parole Board’s five members for more than three hours.

In his petition for clemency, Lucas asked for mercy, saying he is sorry that he and an accomplice murdered Steven Moss and his children on April 23, 1998. Lucas' petition also said he is practicing Buddhism and wants to continue helping other prisoners.

Few legal options remain

Lucas has an appeal pending with the Superior Court in Butts County, where Georgia’s death row is located. Filed on Tuesday, it is his lawyers’ first appeal since the U.S. Supreme Court last fall refused to hear his case, which usually marks the end of legal challenges.

According to the appeal, jurors did not hear details of Lucas’ violent childhood or his alcohol and drug abuse.

Lucas’ lawyers also argued that his age at the time of the crime is another reason he should not be executed. State law and the federal courts forbid the death penalty for anyone younger than 18. Lucas was 19 in 1998.

“Science has confirmed that adolescents do not magically become ‘adults’ once they turn 18,” Lucas’ lawyers wrote. “Rather, they continue to be vulnerable to peer pressure and risk-taking behavior just like people under 18 years.”

Lucas’ appeal options are limited, said Stephen Bright, who teaches at Yale Law School and is president and senior counsel at the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta.

He said the courts have already settled key issues that have been raised in previous execution appeals — the quality of lethal injection drugs and how they are made as well as laws that protect the identities of the drug providers,

Not a question of innocence

Bright said that while there may be important constitutional issues, at this point "the federal courts can only consider whether the defendant is actually innocent."

Lucas, however, confessed.

Lucas and his accomplice, 18-year-old Brandon Rhode, broke into the Moss home outside of Grey just before Kristin and Bryan were to get home from school. The men confessed they were ransacking the Middle Georgia home when Bryan got there. The child came inside armed with an aluminum bat he had grabbed to defend his home. But he was no match for two killers.

Kristin was the next to come home, and the armed men were waiting for her when she came through the door.

First they shot the boy and then his sister. Their father, Steven, came home and he was shot and killed too.