The state of Georgia has set a June 17 execution date for Marcus Wellons, who sits on death row for the rape and murder of a 15-year-old Cobb County girl.
The execution date was set little more than a week after the Georgia Supreme Court upheld the state’s lethal-injection secrecy law.
Wellons was sentenced to death in 1993 for the sexual assault and murder of India Roberts, who lived in a neighboring townhouse apartment. He abducted the teenager shortly after she had said goodbye to her mother and walked toward her school bus stop. An autopsy showed the Campbell High School sophomore had died from strangulation, possibly from a telephone cord used by Wellons.
Wellons’ case received national attention when it was disclosed after his trial that his jurors gave erotic chocolate “gag gifts” to the judge and bailiff.
In September 2012, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals called the gifts “tasteless and inappropriate” but said they played no part in the judge’s or jury’s consideration. For this reason, the court denied Wellons’ request for a new trial.
“We … acknowledge that the ill-advised actions of a few thoughtless jurors could create the perception that this jury was too busy joking around rather than deciding Wellons’ fate, ” Judge Charles Wilson wrote. “But these were two isolated incidents in the span of a multi-week trial and we cannot say, on the basis of this record, that the verdicts were tainted.”
The 11th Circuit heard the case after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2010 said the erotic gifts raised questions that required further examination. A death penalty case “must be conducted with dignity and respect, ” the high court said.
The justices found disturbing a penis-shaped chocolate that was given to Cobb Superior Court Judge Mary Staley and chocolate breasts sent to the court bailiff after the 1993 trial.
In its subsequent ruling, the 11th Circuit said Staley neglected to properly handle the situation. She should have admonished or disciplined the jurors who were involved and should have disclosed what happened to prosecutors and Wellons' lawyers so they could have made timely objections, the ruling said.
Juror Mary Jo Hooper previously told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that during the trial she ordered a box of chocolate-shaped turtles from a friend who ran a candy shop to give to fellow jurors and court personnel. The friend included the penis-shaped chocolate as a joke and, after a bailiff said the judge wanted to see it, Hooper said she discreetly gave it to Staley after the trial ended.
An unidentified juror sent the breast-shaped chocolates to the bailiff after the trial, the ruling said.
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