30 September 2010 :

Brandon Joseph Rhode, 31, white, was executed. He had tried to kill himself last week by slashing his arms and throat with a razor blade. Rhode had previously been scheduled to be put to death Sept. 21, but the Georgia Supreme Court postponed the execution twice after Rhode was rushed to the hospital that day following a suicide attempt. Rhode was stabilized at a local hospital and placed in a restraining chair to prevent him from pulling out the sutures on his neck or doing any other harm to himself. Defense attorney Brian Kammer countered that Rhode was put in a "torture chair'' and subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. Kammer urged the Georgia Supreme Court Monday to push back the execution again so experts could evaluate whether Rhode was mentally competent to be executed, or understood why he was being punished. He said Rhode lost half his blood Sept. 21 when he cut himself, went into shock and could have suffered brain damage. "The threat of execution has pushed Mr. Rhode's limited coping skills to the breaking point,'' spurring him to slash himself with blades he hid from guards while under a blanket, he said in the court filing. The inmate's supporters filed a separate motion urging the execution be delayed for three weeks so officials could determine how Rhode got the razor blades. A federal judge rejected the appeal, but ordered state prisons officials to take more security precautions to make sure he did not harm himself. Tonight Rhode declined to speak any last words or have a final prayer. He was convicted in 2000 of the April 1998 killings of Steven Moss, 37, his 11-year-old son Bryan and 15-year-old daughter Kristin during a burglary of their home. His coconspirator, Daniel Lucas, was also sentenced to death in a separate trial and he remains on death row. Rhode becomes the 2nd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Georgia and the 48th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1983. Rhode becomes the 40th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1228th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

11 June 2010 :

Melbert Ray Ford has been executed. Ford, 49, white, was convicted of the1986 shooting deaths of his ex-girlfriend and her 11-year-old niece. Prosecutors say Ford was seeking revenge when he killed Martha Chapman Matich and her niece Lisa Chapman. Ford becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Georgia and the 47th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1983. Ford becomes the 26th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1214th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

29 August 2010 :

U.S. District Court Judge William T. Moore Jr. denied death row inmate Troy Davis' innocence claim after a rare hearing. The ruling against Davis, 41, black, sets the stage for Georgia officials to move forward with executing him for the 1989 shooting death of Mark MacPhail, a police officer. A year ago (see Aug. 8, 2009) the U.S. Supreme Court granted Davis a federal hearing to put his innocence claim to the test - a chance afforded no other American in at least 50 years. The Supreme Court's decision to grant Davis an evidentiary hearing was extraordinary because federal death penalty appeals normally look only at questions of due process and constitutional violations, not guilt or innocence. In June, Judge Moore heard 2 days of testimony from witnesses seeking to cast doubt on Davis' conviction. Judge Moore said the evidence presented by Davis' attorneys at a June hearing wasn't nearly strong enough to prove he's innocent. "Ultimately, while Mr. Davis's new evidence casts some additional, minimal doubt on his conviction, it is largely smoke and mirrors," the judge said. Davis has been spared from execution 3 times as his attorneys pushed their argument that new evidence showed police ignored MacPhail's real killer as they rushed to pin the shooting on Davis. For more than a decade, Davis has sought to present in open court his claims of innocence, including the testimony of 7 key prosecution witnesses who have recanted or contradicted their trial testimony. (see also: 15/07/2007, 10/07/2008, 12/09/2008, 23/09/2008, 30/09/2008, 06/10/2008, 14/10/2008, 15/10/2008, 24/10/2008, 19/11/2008, 17/04/2009, 21/05/2009, 29/06/2009, 20/12/2009)

28 June 2010 :

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit found that Georgia's standards for mental retardation (intellectual disability) is unconstitutional. The Court said that requiring defendants to prove intellectual disability (mental retardation) "beyond a reasonable doubt" violates the Eighth Amendment's ban against cruel and unusual punishments. It could also result in the execution of intellectually disabled defendants, which the U.S. Supreme Court barred in 2002 in Atkins v. Virginia "This conception of the reasonable doubt standard, by its very terms, ensures that some, if not many, mentally retarded offenders will be executed in violation of the Eighth Amendment," said the court. The ruling could result in new hearings for 10 death row inmates according to the Georgia Appellate Practice and Educational Resource Center. The defendant in the current case is Warren Hill, who was sentenced to death in 1991 despite evidence that he was mentally retarded.

26 January 2010 :

The state Supreme Court today unanimously reinstated two death sentences for Donnie Cleveland Lance. Lance, 56, white, was convicted in June 1999 in the Nov. 9, 1997 deaths of ex-wife, Sabrina "Joy" Lance, and her boyfriend, Dwight "Butch" Wood and was sentenced to death for each killing. In April 2009 a Butts County judge upheld the murder convictions but struck down the death sentences on the basis that Lance's trial lawyer didn’t adequately represent him by not bringing evidence of his impairment. In an unanimous decision released this morning, Supreme Court judges agreed that Lance hadn't been properly represented at trial, but a jury likely still would have sentenced Lance to death even if they knew of his mental impairments.

15 January 2010 :

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta reversed the death sentence of James "Ray" Ward finding there was "improper bailiff-jury communication" during the penalty phase of his trial and ordered a new sentencing hearing. A Walker County jury convicted Ward of feticide and the August 17, 1989 kidnapping, rape and murder of 23-year-old Nikia Gilbreath. Ward argued in appeals that jurors asked a bailiff during deliberations whether they could impose a sentence of life without parole, and the bailiff told them it wasn't an option. The appeals panel found that it violated Ward's right to an impartial jury and that the communication should have handled in court.

20 April 2010 :

A Fulton County jury sentenced Cleveland Clark, 52, black, to death in a murder-for-hire plot in 2000. Last week, the same jury convicted Clark of killing Sparkle Rai, 22, black, for $10,000 in a murder-for-hire scheme financed by Rai's father-in-law. Rai’s father-in-law, Chiman Rai, a native of India, wanted Rai dead because he opposed his son marrying an African-American woman. Sparkle, then 22, and Rajeeve “Ricky” Rai had been married a month when she was murdered. Clark was the last of those implicated in Rai’s death. Chiman Rai, 68, was sentenced in 2008 to life in prison without the possibility of parole for hiring Clark to kill Sparkle Rai. Prosecutors say Rai paid $10,000 to have Sparkle killed. A business acquaintance, Herbert Green, teamed up with a friend, Willie Fred Evans. Evans reputedly recruited Clark. Green and Evans agreed to testify for the prosecution in exchange for probation. Sparkle’s murder had gone unsolved for six years until witnesses came forward identifying Clark as the killer, court officials said. Judge T. Jackson Bedford has not set a sentencing date jet.